Writing Skills

Use quotation marks to indicate actual speech or dialogue and to set off direct quotations of text or speech from other sources.

You use quotation marks when referencing short stories, essays, articles, book chapters, short poems, songs, and TV episodes

• “Mac and Dennis Buy a Timeshare”

In essays, research papers, or reports, when a quotation is more than four lines long, that quotation needs to be indented half an inch, double-spaced, and NOT enclosed in quotation marks. Such long quotations are also called block quotes. Consider the following example:

CORRECT

Elizabeth I's Tilbury speech is considered one of the defining moments of British History: 

I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm: to which rather than any dishonour shall grow by me, I myself will take up arms, I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field. (Royal Museums Greenwich)

Direct quotations include a person's actual words which need to be enclosed in quotation marks.  A direct quotation needs to start with a capital letter, unless it is divided into two or more parts. Then the second part should start with the lower case letter.

• CORRECT: "When you ask a question," the instructor said, "make sure you mark it in the notes."

Direct quotations are set off from the main clause by commas. If the direct quotation is also a question or an exclamation, the question mark and the exclamation point are included inside the quotes. The period should also be included inside the quotation marks.

• CORRECT: "Did you send the directions?" my mother asked.
• CORRECT: "I never said that!" I answered.

Semicolons and colons should always be placed outside the closing quotation marks.

• The doctor said, "We should schedule an MRI"; then she proceeded to explain what the process would entail. 

Indirect quotations do not state the speaker's words exactly; rather they indicate the general idea of what was said.

Words spoken by a character in a novel

• He looked her square in the eye and said, “I like Reptilia Testudines.”

Single quotes are used to enclose a quotation inside a quotation.

• "I am writing a book on Elizabeth I," the historian said.  "Her Tilbury speech is rather moving, especially when she said, 'Let tyrants fear'."

Words used not according to their traditional definition

• Dexter was “good” at his job; he never did anything which is the same as doing no harm.