Quotation Marks

  • Use quotation marks to set off short direct quotations. (For quotations longer than four lines, follow the standards accepted by your discipline.)

    • "You will be responsible for the material in these textbooks," my professor said, "all ten of them."

    She then said that "those who fail to heed my words will surely fail the final exam."

  • Use single quotation marks to enclose quotations within quotations.

    "Whoever who said 'This too shall pass,'" she moaned, "was wrong."

  • Use quotations marks to enclose the titles of short written works such as poems, essays, articles, chapters, stories, and songs.

    Look for Margaret Atwood's story "Under Glass" in her collection of stories called Dancing Girls.

  • Use quotation marks to enclose words used in a special sense or taken from special vocabularies.

    He really "caught some air" on that last jump.

    In basketball, when a defender lets his opponent "stuff" the ball, he's been "faced."

  • Use quotation marks to enclose nicknames or ironic words and phrases.

    My friend "Chops" can really play the trumpet.

    His "limousine" was a 1961 Volkswagen.