Quotation Marks

When you get bogged down in a book, is it usually because the characters are speaking too much or because the writer is describing too much?

Wait: before you answer that, read The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Need to read a book in a hurry? Skip every section that is not enclosed in quotation marks. Let the dialogue of the characters tell you the story.

People are fascinated by conversation, especially if it is interesting conversation. The quotation mark indicates to readers that the enclosed text is a direct quotation, either from another source or from your characters as dialogue.

By using them correctly (that is, consistently with other sources), you avoid distracting a reader.

Follow these guidelines when using quotation marks:

• Use quotation marks to indicate direct quotations and dialogue.
• Do not use quotation marks for indirect quotations.
• Use single quotation marks to indicate a quotation within a quotation or dialogue.
• Use quotation marks for minor titles.
• Use quotation marks to indicate a word or phrase is tentative.
• Do not use quotation marks for emphasis.
• Periods and commas go inside quotation marks.
• Colons and semicolons stay outside quotation marks.
• Question marks, exclamation points, and dashes stay within quotation marks when they apply only to the quoted matter.

Use quotation marks to indicate direct quotations and dialogue.

This one is obvious to anyone who's read a book.

"Pardon me, sir," she said. "You're sitting on my hat."

A direct quotation is anything literally said, either in your fictional dialogue or by another person as a quotation:

Churchill uttered a little known quote at the diplomatic conference at Yalta: "You looking for a rumble, Stalin? Bring it on, you sack of collectivist dung!"

Do not use quotation marks for indirect quotations.

An indirect quotation is not exactly what was said.

Last night when Mom was drunk, she said she wished she'd never had a boy.

Be careful about overusing this. It removes the audience from directly observing the quotation as it happens and can be boring:

He said he wasn't sure what he'd do now that the war had started.

She said she knew, and caressed his chest.

Use single quotation marks to indicate a quotation within a quotation or dialogue.

It can be confusing to do this often, but sometimes it is necessary to place quotations within quotations.

Grandpa puffed on his pipe. "Yes, sir. If there's one thing my Daddy always used to tell me, it was 'Never turn your back to a Swede.'"

Use quotation marks for minor titles.

A minor title is the title of a shorter work, including short stories, poems, and episodes of television shows.

My favorite episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation is "Tapestry."

The story I esteem as the greatest of American literature is Salinger's "The Laughing Man."

Use quotation marks to indicate a word or phrase is tentative.

A word or phrase is tentative when you’re not sure it’s true or not, or if you’re referring to an opinion with which you may or may not agree:

My older brother was supposedly a golfing genius.

My older brother was a "golfing genius.”

This means that every time you see a sign on a backroad outside a hillbilly diner that reads "Come on in for 'delicious' food!" means that they're not so sure it's delicious.

Do not use quotation marks for emphasis.

For some reason, people feel that quotation marks add emphasis to a sentence:

Try our “new” goat brain ice cream!

As I mentioned before, quotation marks denote a tenative word. To people literate in the English language, you’re undermining your emphasis by making it appear as though you might not believe it yourself.

Of course, if you’re running a car lot in rural America, you might not have anyone in your audience who will recognize your mistake:

I’m “reputable!” I sell cars that are not “stolen.”

If you use it in a book, people will wince.

Periods and commas go inside quotation marks.

”Dad’s passed out in the garage,” shouted Amy. “He must have been sniffing the fumes again.”

Note above that you use a comma at the end of a quoted sentence if it is not the end of the actual sentence. Since “shouted Amy” was still to come, the sentence “Dad’s passed out in the garage” correctly ends with a comma.

Colons and semicolons stay outside quotation marks.

If this comes up in your writing more than ten times in your life, you’re writing deconstructionist literary criticism. Cut it out.

One thinks of a single revolutionary in the destruction of “meaning”: Norman Amemiya.

Question marks, exclamation points, and dashes stay within quotation marks when they apply only to the quoted matter.

There is a difference in meaning between these two sentences:

Our ancestors asked: ”Must we never know true freedom?”

Did not our ancestors ask: ”Must we never know true freedom”?

In the first case, only the ancestors are asking a question. In the second, the speaker is asking the question. This supercedes the questions asked by the ancestors and hence the question mark belongs on the outside.

If you don’t understand this rule or concept, don’t write sentences like this. You can probably live a long and happy life without ever facing this issue.