The examples beneath are set off in order to avoid defoliation over the use of single and double quotation marks.
There are many ways to go incorrect with quotation marks. They are often used ironically:

She ran around with a bunch of "intellectuals."

The quotation marks around "intellectuals" indicate that the writer believes that these are in fact so-called intellectuals, non real intellectuals at all. The ironic use of quotation marks is very much overdone, and is usually a sign of laziness indicating that the writer has non bothered to discover the precise word or expression necessary.

Advertisers unfortunately tend to use quotation marks merely for emphasis:

"FRESH" TOMATOES
59 CENTS A POUND

The influence of the more than common ironic usage tends to make the reader question whether these tomatoes are actually fresh. Underlining, bold lettering, all caps—there are several less ambiguous means to emphasize words than placing them betwixt quotation marks.

In American usage, single quotation marks are used normally only for quoted words and phrases inside quotations.

Angela had the nerve to tell me "When I saw 'BYOB' on your invitation, I assumed it meant 'Bring Your Old Swain.'"

British usage inverse during the last century to reverse this relationship, with single quotation marks beingness standard and double ones beingness used only for quotations inside quotations. (The English language also phone call quotation marks "inverted commas," though only the opening quotation marker is actually inverted—and flipped, as well.) Nonetheless, usage in the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland is shifting toward the US pattern, (see, for example,The Times of London); though the printing of fiction tends to adhere to the older British pattern, where U.s.a. students are near likely to encounter information technology.

Single quotation marks are also used in linguistic, phonetic, and philosophical studies to surround words and phrases nether discussion; but the common exercise of using unmarried quotation marks for short phrases and words and double ones for complete sentences is otherwise an error.

Block quotations like this should not exist surrounded by any quotation marks at all. (A passage this short should not exist rendered equally a cake quotation; you lot need at least 3 lines of verse or five lines of prose to justify a block quotation.) Unremarkably yous should leave actress space above and below a block quotation.

When quoting a long passage involving more than one paragraph, quotation marks go at the kickoff of each paragraph, but at the terminate of but the final 1. Dialogue in which the speaker changes with each paragraph has each speech enclosed in its own quotation marks.

Titles of books and other long works that might exist printed as books are ordinarilyitalicized (except, for some reason, in newspapers); but the titles of brusque poems, stories, essays, and other works that would be more commonly printed within larger works (anthologies, collections, periodicals, etc.) are enclosed in quotation marks.

There are different patterns for regulating how quotation marks relate to other punctuation. Observe out which ane your instructor or editor prefers and use it, or choose one of your own liking, but stick to it consistently. One widely accepted authorisation in America is theChicago Manual of Mode, whose guidelines are outlined beneath. English, Canadian, Australian and other writers in British-influenced countries should be enlightened that their national patterns will be quite unlike, and variable.

In standard American practice, commas are placed inside quotation marks:

I spent the morning time reading Faulkner's "Barn Burning," which seemed to be well-nigh a pyromaniac.

In American usage periods are also usually placed within quotation marks (with the exception of terms existence defined, meet above). Colons and semicolons, however, are preceded by quotation marks.

If the quoted matter ends with a question marking or assertion indicate, it is placed inside the quotation marks:

John asked, "When's dinner?"

But if it is the enclosing sentence which asks the question, then the question marking comes after the quotation marks:

What did she mean, John wondered, by saying "as soon every bit y'all arrive"?

Similarly:

Fred shouted, "Wait out for the bull!"

but

When I was subsequently gored, all Timmy said was, "This is kinda boring"!

In British usage, all punctuation marks normally become exterior the single quotation marks, though usage does vary in the United kingdom.

It is unfortunately true that many standard character sets—including ASCII and bones HTML—lack true quotation marks which coil to enclose the quoted thing, substituting instead ugly "inch" or "ditto" marks. If y'all are writing HTML for the Spider web, yous need to turn off the "smart quotes" characteristic in your word processor which curls quotation marks and apostrophes. Leaving curled quotation marks and apostrophes in text intended for the Spider web causes ugly gibberish which will make your writing hard to read.

If you would similar to include proper curled quotation marks and apostrophes in your HTML code you tin can write“ (curled double open quote),” (curled double close quote),‘ (curled single open quote), and’ (curled close quote). Most contemporary browsers can properly interpret these codes, though they used to cause trouble for people using older browser versions.

Run into also apostrophes.

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