Quotation Marks

Quotation Marks: An Overview

1. Use quotation marks when you’re writing dialogue or copying a words from a source.

   1. He said, “I’ll never forget you.” It was the best moment of my life.

   2. Yogi Berra famously said, “A nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore.”

   3. According to several studies, Lhasa Apsos are “fearless dogs with the heart of a lion” (Rigolino 23)..

If you’re just writing an approximation of something a person said, you would not use quotation marks:

1. She told me about Pizza the three-toed sloth yesterday.

2. He said that he would be late today.

2. Use quotation marks around the titles of short works such as poems, short stories, songs, speeches, and television episodes.

1. “The Flea” is a famous sonnet by John Donne.

2. In my opinion, Langston Hughes’s best short story is “Cora Unashamed.”

3. Jesse loves Taylor Swift’s song “You Need to Calm Down.”

3. Use quotations to call attention to a word. For example:

1. I can never say “Worcestershire” correctly.

2. How do you spell “definitely”?

4. Single vs. Double Quotes

1. Single quotes are used to enclose a quote within a quote or a title within a quote.

2. The professor asked us, “How many of you have read the story ‘Cora Unashamed’ in your textbook?”

3. According to Dr. Smith, “When I met Roosevelt he told me, ‘Keep up the good work.'”

4. John said, “I have just finished reading Browning’s ‘My Last Duchess.’”

5. Scare Quotes are the most misused type of quotation marks. People often think that quotation marks mean emphasis.

1. Buy some “fresh” chicken today!

2. We’ll give it our “best” effort.

3. Employees “must” wash their hands before returning to work.

4. However, when used this way, the quotation marks insert a silent “so-called” into the sentence, which is often the opposite of the intended meaning.

Where do Quotation Marks Go?

Despite what you may see practiced, the fact is that the period and comma always go inside the quotation marks. (The rules in British English are different, which may be where some of the confusion arises.)

• Correct: The people of the pine barrens are often called “pineys.”

• Incorrect: The people of the pine barrens are often called “pineys”.

The semicolon, colon, dash, question mark, and exclamation point can fall inside or outside of the quotation marks, depending on whether the punctuation is a part of the original quote:

• This measurement is commonly known as “dip angle”; dip angle is the angle formed between a normal plane and a vertical.

• Built only 50 years ago, Shakhtinsk—“minetown”—is already seedy.

• She asked, “Are rainbows possible in winter?” 

• Did he really say, “Dogs are the devil’s henchmen”? (The quote is a statement, but the full sentence is a question.)

Adapted from "Quotation Marks: An Overview" by Lumen Learning, which is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).