QUOTATION MARKS

Quotation marks are signs used to indicate that the writer is giving exactly the words of another. A French printer named Morel used a comma in the outer margin to indicate a quoted line about 1550. About a century later another Frenchman, Ménage, introduced a mark («») resembling a double parenthesis but shorter. These marks were cast on the middle of the type body so that they could be reversed for use at either the beginning or the end of a quotation. The French have retained these signs as their quotation marks ever since.

When the English adopted the use of quotation marks, they did not take over the French marks, but substituted two inverted commas at the beginning and two apostrophes at the end of the quoted paragraph. These marks are typographically unsatisfactory. They are weak and therefore hardly adequate to their purpose in aiding the understanding through the eye. Being cast on the upper part of the type body, they leave a blank space below and thus impair the beauty of the line and interfere with good spacing. Certain rules for the position of quotation marks when used with other marks are based upon these typographical considerations rather than upon logical considerations.

Rules for the Use of Quotation Marks

1. Every direct quotation should be enclosed in double quotation marks.

“I will go,” said he, “if I can.”

Reports of what another person has said when given in words other than his own are called indirect quotations and take no marks.

He said he would go if he could.

2. A quotation of several paragraphs requires quotation marks at the beginning of each paragraph, but at the end of the last one only. In legal documents, and sometimes elsewhere, quotations are defined and emphasized by putting double commas at the beginning of every line of the quotation.

The same result may be better obtained by using smaller type, or indenting the quotation, or both.

3. A quotation included within another quotation should be enclosed by single quotation marks.

He said: “I heard him cry ‘Put down that gun,’ and then I heard a shot.”

4. Titles of books, essays, art works, etc., are usually enclosed in quotation marks. When the books are supposedly familiar to all readers, the marks are not used. You would not print “The Bible,” “Paradise Lost,” “The Iliad.”

The titles of books, etc., are sometimes printed in italics instead of being enclosed in quotation marks. This is a matter of office style rather than of good or bad practice.

5. In writing about plays or books, the name of the work may be quoted and the name of a character italicized. This is done to avoid confusion between the play, the character, and the real person portrayed. “William Tell” is a play. William Tell is a character in fiction. William Tell is a national hero of Switzerland.

This usage is by no means uniform; here again, we are on the ground of office style.

6. Names of vessels are sometimes quoted, sometimes italicized, and sometimes printed without distinguishing marks. Here we are once more on the ground of office style.

7. Sentences from a foreign language are usually enclosed in quotation marks. Single words or phrases are usually printed in italics. Both italics and quotation marks should not be used except under certain unusual conditions or when positively ordered by the author.

8. Quotation marks may be used with a word to which the writer desires to attract particular attention or to which he desires to give an unusual, technical, or ironical meaning.

This “gentleman” needs a shave.

9. When a quotation is long or when it is introduced in a formal manner, it is usually preceded by a colon. Isolated words or phrases call for no point after the introductory clause. This is true when the phrases so quoted run to considerable length, provided there is no break in the flow of thought and expression.

10. When a quotation ends a sentence the quotation marks are placed after the period.

The comma is always placed inside the quotation marks.

The position of the other marks (semicolon, colon, exclamation, and interrogation) is determined by the sense. If they form a part of the matter quoted, they go inside the quote marks; if not, they go outside them.

11. When quotation marks occur at the beginning of a line of poetry, they should go back into the indention space.

“Breathes there a man with soul so dead Who never to himself hath said, ‘This is my own, my native land’?”

This illustration is also a good example of the use of marks in combinations. We have first the single quotation marking the end of the included quotation, then the interrogation which ends the sentence, then the double quotation marks in their proper position.

Quotation marks should not be used needlessly. Very familiar expressions from the best known authors, such as to the manor born, a conscience void of offence, with malice toward none and charity for all, have become part of the current coin of speech and need not be quoted. Lists of words considered as words merely, lists of books or plays, and other such copy should be printed without quotation marks. Sprinkling a page thickly with quotation marks not only spoils its appearance but makes it hard to read, without adding to its clearness of meaning.