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Today’s topic is quotation marks and other assorted punctuation. There are some crazy rules out there, but I’ll do my best to keep things simple. Oh, the first rule is that this is American punctuation; British punctuation is different.
Double quotation marks (“”)
· Use for quoted words, phrases, and sentences.
· Use for direct discourse or dialog.
· Use with other punctuation as follows:
o Periods go inside double quotation marks.
o Commas go inside double quotation marks.
o Colons and semicolons go outside quotation marks.
o Question marks and exclamation points? It depends whether they are part of the quoted material.
Examples:
o Marcy screamed, “Get that tarantula away from me!”
o “I think I’d like to try the vegetarian haggis,” she replied.
o His favorite parting line was to tell us to “Keep on truckin’.”
Single quotation marks (‘’)
· Use for quotations within quotations.
· Do not use to replace double quotation marks.
Example:
“Clarke,” said Maude, “I’ll help you with the first words to the Preamble. It starts ‘We the people, of the United States of America.’ ″
For more information, I’ve included a chart from the Chicago Manual of Style and you can click here to see what the Purdue OWL has to say.
From the Chicago Manual of Style online.
Kara Church
Technical Editor, Advisory
Editor's Corner 
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