Quotation marks
Direct quotation
The judge said, "Well, your quartet is not hopeless."
"I look forward to serving a second term as your chapter president," said Nash.
Quotation marks are used to enclose each part of an interrupted quotation. Notice in the second example below that the second part of the quotation is capitalized because the speaker begins a new sentence.
"Where," he asked, "do you keep the shoes to this uniform?"
"We need to raise $150,000 for our concert tour of England," he said. "Where will we get that much money?"
Do not use quotation marks in an indirect quotation (one in which the editor is not citing the exact words used by the speaker).
The judge said that our quartet was not without hope.
He noted that it would take $150,000 to finance the trip to England, and he wondered how the chapter could raise that much money.
Quotations marks are not used with "yes" or "no" unless each is part of direct discourse.
Mike always answers yes to our request; he can never say no to a friend.
When asked if he were feeling better, he weakly responded, "Yes."
Long direct quotation
If a full paragraph of quoted material is followed by a paragraph that continues the quotation, do not put close-quote marks at the end of the first paragraph. Do, however, put open-quote marks (") at the beginning of the subsequent paragraphs. This procedure should be continued for each paragraph of direct quotation. Use close-quote marks (") only at the end of the entire quoted passage. The following example is taken from Joe Liles column in the May/June 1994 Harmonizer:|
"If you were to reflect a moment, obvious heroes would immediately come to mind. Most likely, your first list would contain those who have achieved a high office or who have attained a remarkable level of performance or ranking within Society life--all clearly pronounced leaders. We recognize their awesome, dynamic administrative and/or musical abilities.
"This publication could be literally filled with nothing but famous names: those who have gone on before or who live today. The roll is increasing annually. "The thought occurred to me: where would heroes be without all of us common guys? They would have no one to lead, no one to perform for or with, and no one to complete the tasks." |
Whenever possible, avoid long, multi-paragraphed direct quotations. The reader can lose track of the fact that it is a direct quote, and the appearance of the directly quoted text will blend in too easily with the rest of the article. Academic documentation requires that if a writer directly quotes anything longer than five typed lines (or approximately 50 words), he should indent all the material so that the quoted text becomes readily apparent and not use quotation marks (the indentation functions as a cue to direct quotation).
Notice how this procedure is used in handling the above long direct quotation. The following might have appeared as part of a column in a chapter bulletin:
All too often, we lose sight of just how important our past members are in our chapter. These men have played an important role in the history of your chapter. That's why Joe Liles' comments are so appropriate:
|
If you were to reflect a moment, obvious heroes would immediately come to mind. Most likely, your first list would contain those who have achieved a high office or who have attained a remarkable level of performance or ranking within Society life--all clearly pronounced leaders. We recognize their awesome, dynamic administrative and/or musical abilities.
This publication could be literally filled with nothing but famous names: those who have gone on before or who live today. The roll is increasing annually. The thought occurred to me: where would heroes be without all of us common guys? They would have no one to lead, no one to perform for or with, and no one to complete the tasks. |
That's why each of us needs to be aware of who these past members are, not because we're interested in enticing them back to sing with us, but because their character and personality have shaped the way we are today.
As a way of handling a long direct quotation, the special indentation pattern is a much more effective method. Again, the technique should be used sparingly; paraphrase whenever possible.
Titles
(see also Italics)
The titles of books, magazines, or collections of individual works should be italicized or underlined. Quotation marks are used to enclose the titles of magazine articles, essays, short stories, songs, poems, lectures, chapter titles, or radio and TV programs.
Darryl Flinn's column, "Let's Harmonize," appears in each issue of The Harmonizer.
139th Street Quartet appeared on NBC's "Cheers."
Clay's solo in "Old Man River" always thrills the audience.
Special use of words and phrases
Among these "old crows" are some of the men who have made our chapter the success it is, so we shouldn't be too quick to "turn them out to pasture."
Are these choreography plans your so-called "simple directions"?
-- Words used as words A word referred to as a word is italicized (underlined) in print. However, when that word and its definition appear in the same sentence, the word is italicized (underlined) and the definition is placed in quotation marks.
Singing in a scherzando manner means "to sing lightheartedly."
Our director used the term curtainitis to indicate "sheer terror when the curtain opens."
Punctuation with quotation marks
Periods and commas -- Always go within the quotation marks.
"I'm leaving," he said in a huff.
He said, "The program will begin at 9 o'clock."
Semicolons and colons -- Always go outside the quotation marks.
He said, "Wait until Friday"; however, Friday will be too late.
We forgot the words to the fourth verse of "Amazing Grace": "The Lord has promised good to me ..."
Question marks and exclamation points -- Each of these marks goes inside the quotation marks when it refers to the quoted material only. Each goes outside when it refers to the whole sentence.
He asked, "When did he leave?"
Did you hear me say, "Come in and have a seat"?
The director shouted, "Sing loudly!"
Don't you dare say, "Do it yourself"!
Editors frequently have problems with these marks when writing song titles. Notice how the above rules are applied to these titles:
I like to sing "My Wild Irish Rose," but Joe likes to sing "Lida Rose."
Did we sing "My Wild Irish Rose"?
We sang "Are You From Dixie?"
I can't believe we sang "You're the Reason Our Kids Are Ugly"!
Quotations within quotations -- If a situation requires the use of quoted material within quoted material, place the internal item within single quotation marks while enclosing the primary quote in double quotation marks.
In this case, the single quotation marks go before the punctuation while the double quotation marks go after in accordance with the above rules.
The district president closed the meeting with these words: "Gentlemen, let's stand and sing 'Keep the Whole World Singing'."
"Was it Jim Miller who said, 'Sing the same notes, the same way, at the same time'?"
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