Hey, y’all, this is a continuation of our last week’s lesson on punctuating quotes.
Just as a refresher, here are last week’s examples:
Grammarbook.com has six rules of punctuating quotes, some with sub rules. The following rules are some of Grammarbook’s mixed with a few from Working With Words (aka the most helpful book ever):
Just as a refresher, here are last week’s examples:
Grammarbook.com has six rules of punctuating quotes, some with sub rules. The following rules are some of Grammarbook’s mixed with a few from Working With Words (aka the most helpful book ever):
- Always use a comma after said when introducing a direct quote that is one sentence long.
- Example: Mona said, “I don’t miss high school at all because college is much more fun.”
- Use double quotation marks to set off a direct (word-for-word) quotation.
- Correct: She asked, “When will your story be done?”
- Incorrect: She asked “when my story will be done.”
- Never use a comma after a period, exclamation point or a question mark in a quotation when the sentence continues past it.
- Correct: “I can swim!” Marian shouted.
- Incorrect: “I can swim!,” Marian shouted.
- Never use a comma before a paraphrase or partial quote.
- Correct: Marian said she loved swimming.
- Incorrect: Marian said, she loved swimming.
- Place semicolons or colons outside closing quotation marks.
- Example 1: Nixon said, “I am not a crook”; others weren’t so sure.
- Example 2: You could hear the pride in his voice as Don spoke of his “future farmers”: his sons, Chris and Sam, and his daughter Jane.
- Place question marks and exclamation points inside closing quotation marks if they are part of the quotation, outside if they are not.
- Example 1: Have you read “Real Estate for Dummies”?
- Example 2: “Bingo!” Gina yelled.
- Either quotation marks or italics are customary for titles: magazines, books, plays, films, songs, poems, article titles, chapter titles, etc.
- Periods and commas always go inside quotation marks.
- Use single quotation marks for quotations within quotations.
- Quotation marks are often used with technical terms, terms used in an unusual way, or other expressions that vary from standard usage.
- Never use single quotation marks to surround jargon words or partial quotes.
- When quoted material runs more than one paragraph, start each new paragraph with opening quotation marks, but do not use closing quotation marks until the end of the passage.