Punctuating Quotes

Using them properly can be a little tricky so remember these rules.

Punctuating quotes. When the speaker tag comes first put a comma. Well the answer is it depends. I don t want any stupid cake says the guy. How can you eat a tuna sandwich while hoisting a piano betsy asked as.

Here you look at the proper punctuation for statements in quotations with and without speaker tags. It s the big and little trick. When you re writing something that is a direct quote meaning that it is the exact words that someone spoke you need to use double quotation marks. Place other punctuation inside quotation marks when that punctuation is part of what is being quoted such as a quoted question.

Quotation marks are used for components such as chapter titles in a book individual episodes of a tv series songs from a broadway show or a music album titles of articles or essays in print or online and shorter works such as short stories and poems. Block quotes are long quotes that are separated from the surrounding text. In any case block quotes don t need quotation marks to set them off from the remaining text even though they are direct quotes. The rules of punctuating dialogue whether in fiction or non fiction are tricksy little creatures.

Proper punctuation quotes. Punctuation with quotations gives many people problems. 92 of the 6th ed. Despite our exposure to hundreds of thousands of dialogue lines writers aren t always familiar with how to punctuate a scene where characters are speaking to each other.

To write proper english you need to follow all the punctuation rules even the illogical ones. Does the question mark go inside or outside of the quotation mark. Take a look at betsy s quotations. As you might guess from our name apa style uses american style punctuation see p.

Other punctuations semicolons question marks dashes and exclamation points belong outside unless it directly pertains to the material within the quotes as in this example from raymond carver s short story where i m calling from. When the material being quoted contains a quotation within a quotation i e something in single quotation marks use double quotation marks. Publication manual as do several other major style guides such as ap chicago and mla the table below elaborates with examples for each punctuation mark. English grammarians have devised a special set of rules for punctuating quotations that are questions.

Periods and commas go inside the quotation marks in american writing the brits have slightly different rules. Usually they appear as a separate paragraph or series of paragraphs with a different font a change in the line spacing or a wider margin. If you start by telling who said it use a comma and then the first quotation mark.

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