The English Department's
Quick Guide to Using Quotation Marks
Note: We're following U.S. conventions in this guide.
Use quotation marks to indicate word-for-word quotations and all dialogue.
- William Shakespeare wrote: "To be or not to be, that is the question."
- "Bon voyage," he said cheerfully.
- "I did not!" she exclaimed indignantly.
Exception #1: For long quotations in scholarly papers, set off the quotation by indentation without quotation marks. This applies to quotations that are four lines or longer.
Exception #2: If you're writing a script, there is no need to use quotation marks in your dialogue.
Use single quotes to enclose a quotation within a quotation.
- Suzy complained, "My mother is always telling me, ‘Eat your vegetables!’"
- Scholar Howard Bloch notes, "[A]ccording to Tertullian, woman naturally decorates herself and is by nature decoration: ‘Female habit carries with it a twofold idea--dress and ornament.’"
Use quotation marks to indicate the titles of short stories, essays, short poems, songs, and articles.
(Use italics or underlining to indicate the titles of books, journals, magazines, and newspapers.)
- I read "Beauty and the Beast" in Fairy Tales for Children.
- Newsweek had an informative article called "Crisis in the Middle East."
- Sue argued that the Beatles’ greatest song was "A Day in the Life" on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
- Elizabeth Bishop’s poem "Love Lies Sleeping" appeared in North & South.
Put commas inside quotation marks. Put a period inside the quotation marks if the quotation ends the sentence.
- "I’m happy," he said.
- He said, "I’m happy."
Put colons, semicolons, and dashes outside the quotation marks.
- He warned me, "You’ll be sorry"; I didn’t listen.
- An exciting story is "Young Goodman Brown"--it’s full of witches and devils.
- One character is clearly the most noble in "The Franklin's Tale": the magician.
Put question marks and exclamation marks within quotes only when they apply to the quoted matter. Put them outside when they do not.
- Who said, "The unexamined life is not worth living"?
- Bill asked, "Do you know what time it is?"
- I can’t stand the song "Some Enchanted Evening"!
© The English Department 1999