When inserted in the middle of a person’s actual name, a nickname should appear in quotation marks. As an alternative to parentheses, quotation marks can be used to enclose a translation. A colon should be used when the text introducing the quoted material could stand as a sentence on its own. The comma is the mark most frequently used to introduce quoted material. In general, short-form works like poems, songs, or short stories use quotation marks, while long-form works like books, films, or stage plays use italics.

• Styles elsewhere vary widely and have different rationales for placing it inside or outside, often a matter of house style.
• They are the Latin tradition quotation marks, normally used by typographers, and are also the usual style in reference sources, as well as on some websites dedicated to the Portuguese language.
• A line-break should not be allowed between the en-dash and the first word of the quotation.
• “Smart quotes” features wrongly convert initial apostrophes (as in ’tis, ’em, ’til, and ’89) into opening single quotes.
• Guillemet marks pointing inwards are used for highlights and in case a quotation occurs inside a quotation.
• The use of English quotation marks is increasing in Spanish;citation needed the El País style guide, which is widely followed in Spain, recommends them.
• In Central Europe, the practice was to use the quotation mark pairs with the convexity aimed inward.

Quotations and speech

The following is an example of TeX input which yields proper curly quotation marks. All other forms of quotation marks, such as angled, lowered, inverted, were not provided by British or American typewriters. When corner brackets are being used for quotations, quote-within-quote segments are marked with white corner brackets. Neither the Portuguese language regulator nor the Brazilian prescribe a particular shape for quotation marks, they only prescribe when and how they should be used.

• Because the quoted material is set off from the main text, it is not necessary to use quotation marks.
• The Unicode mapping for PostScript Standard Encoding preserves the typographic approximation convention by mapping its equivalent of ASCII grave and single-quote to the Unicode curly quotation mark characters.
• There is generally no space between an opening quotation mark and the following word, or a closing quotation mark and the preceding word.
• In Finnish, the beginning of a reporting clause is marked only by the punctuation already existing in the sentence, or (if there was none) by adding a comma.
• AP style uses quotation marks for titles of creative works like books, movies, songs, TV shows, and other compositions.
• The use of English quotation marks is increasing in French and usually follows English rules, for instance in situations when the keyboard or the software context doesn’t allow the use of guillemets.

In non-fiction, some British publishers may permit placing punctuation that is not part of the person’s speech inside the quotation marks but prefer that it be placed outside. When quoted text is interrupted, such as with the phrase he said, a closing quotation mark is used before the interruption, and an opening quotation mark after. Likewise, the typographic opening single quotation mark is sometimes used to represent the ʻokina while either the typographic closing single quotation mark or the neutral single quotation mark may represent the prime symbol.

Capitalize the first letter of the quoted sentence

Another style of quoting is to use an em-dash to open a quote; this is used almost exclusively for quoting dialogues rather than for single statements, and is virtually always spinorhino casino the one used for that purpose in works of fiction. In Polish printed books and publications, this dictionary-recommended style for guillemets (also known as »German quotes«) is used almost exclusively. Guillemet marks pointing outwards are used for definitions (mainly in scientific publications and dictionaries), as well as for enclosing spoken lines and indirect speech, especially in poetic texts. But the most frequent convention used in printed books for nested quotations is to style them in italics.
Use quotation marks to indicate a direct quote or passage copied verbatim from another source. Use quotation marks to draw attention to words or language in your writing. In Windows file and folder names, the straight double quotation mark is prohibited, as it is a reserved character. Thus, in at least some cases, transferring content containing curved quotes (or any other non-ASCII characters) from a word processor to another application or platform has been less troublesome, provided all steps in the process (including the clipboard if applicable) are Unicode-aware. (An example of this error appears in the advertisements for the television show ‘Til Death.) The two very different functions of this character can cause confusion, particularly in British styles,g in which single quotes are the standard primary.

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Primary quotations are orthographically distinguished from secondary quotations that may be nested within a primary quotation. An exception may be made when writing fiction, where the first comma may be placed before the first closing quote. These two styles are most commonly referred to as “American” and “British”, or sometimes “typesetters’ quotation” and “logical quotation”.

Nicknames and false titles

Poland, adopted a variant with the convexity of the closing mark aimed rightward like the opening one, „…”. Some neighboring regions adopted the German curved marks tradition with lower–upper alignment, while some, e.g. Some authors claim that the reason for this was a practical one, in order to get a character that was clearly distinguishable from apostrophes, commas, and parentheses.

For more on the proper use of multiple punctuation at the end of a sentence, see here. This is called nesting quotations. (1) Quotation marks to identify previously spoken or written words Some quoted passages are longer than others. But suppose you place the quotation mid-sentence, forming a syntactical part of the sentence.
Also note that, as a courtesy, there is visible space between adjacent single and double quotation marks. Use single quotation marks for quotations within quotations. If a question is within the quoted material, a question mark should be placed inside the quotation marks. Less commonly, single quotation marks are used in place of parentheses, in which case the translation is not set off with commas. Because the quoted material is set off from the main text, it is not necessary to use quotation marks.
Some websites do not allow typographic quotation marks or apostrophes in posts. This is a continuation of a typewriter tradition of using ticks for opening quotation marks; see Quotation mark § Typewriters and early computers. In English, when a quotation follows other writing on a line of text, a space precedes the opening quotation mark unless the preceding symbol, such as an em dash, requires that there be no space. Americans tend to apply quotations when signifying doubt of veracity (sarcastically or seriously), to imply another meaning to a word or to imply a cynical take on a paraphrased quotation, without punctuation at all. According to the Jargon File from 1983, American hackers (members of a subculture of enthusiastic programmers) switched to what they later discovered to be the British quotation system because placing a period inside a quotation mark can change the meaning of data strings that are meant to be typed character-for-character. It is also similar to the use of quotation marks in many other languages (including Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, Catalan, Dutch and German).
If the question mark or exclamation mark is not part of the quote but part of a question or statement, place it outside the quotation marks. If the question mark or exclamation mark is part of the quote, place it inside the quotation marks. Place the period inside the quotation marks when a quotation comes at the end of a sentence. Place both parts of the quote within their own set of quotation marks. Because you want to attach the speaker to their dialogue, use a comma rather than a period to end the quote inside the quotation marks. In British English, punctuation marks are placed outside the quotation marks unless they are part of the original quotation.
In France, by the end of the nineteenth century, the marks were modified to an angular shape. In most other languages, including English, the marginal marks dropped out of use in the last years of the eighteenth century. Quotation marks have a variety of forms in different languages and in different media.

Since curved quotes are the typographically correct ones,citation needed word processors have traditionally offered curved quotes to users (at minimum as available characters). Most computer keyboards do not have specific keys for curved quotation marks or angled quotation marks. Using this character as the opening quote gave a typographic approximation of curved single quotes. Instead, to limit the number of characters (and keys) required, straight quotation marks were invented as a compromise. When typewriter keyboards were designed, curved quotation marks were not implemented. Different typefaces, character encodings and computer languages use various encodings and glyphs for quotation marks.
In Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, the curved quotation marks, „…“, are used as a secondary level or in handwriting, while the angular marks, «…», are used as the primary level on printed text.citation needed The curved quotation marks (“66–99”) usage, “…”, was exported to some non-Latin scripts, notably where there was some English influence, for instance in Native American scripts and Indic scripts. After the publication of Filelfo’s edition, the quotation marks for literal quotations prevailed. The single quotation mark is traced to Ancient Greek practice, adopted and adapted by monastic copyists. The method for producing smart quotes may be based solely on the character preceding the mark. To make typographic quotation marks easier to enter, publishing software often automatically converts typewriter quotation marks (and apostrophes) to typographic form during text entry (with or without the user being aware of it).