In this video, we look at the different reasons why you would use double or single quotation marks in fiction and non-fiction writing.
We also explore what happens when you need to nest these marks—such as when referring to a title within spoken dialogue.
With these tips, you’ll master quotation mark usage in no time!
Hello, Jane Cleland here to talk about quote marks – the two-mark quote marks and the single-mark quote marks.
Let’s start with titles. The title of a magazine, for example, goes in italics. The title of each article within the magazine goes inside quote marks. The name of a museum exhibit goes in italics; the name of each painting in that exhibit goes inside quote marks. So, the individual units get quote marks, the overarching container – the category – that’s in italics.
We also use quote marks to indicate the exact words of a speaker, and in non-fiction writing, certainly, you never change a word. If you’re going to paraphrase something, you use square brackets. You remove the part you’re removing and insert square brackets with your paraphrase, and that lets the reader know that you’re paraphrasing. If you’re just removing something, you go dot dot dot – use ellipses to indicate something is missing.
You use a single mark inside a quote mark to indicate a quote within a quote. So, for example, I went to the museum exhibit “Picasso’s Mother and Child” – that would normally be in quote marks.
But now I want to refer to it in a character’s dialogue. They’re having a conversation, and that character would say, “Oh, I loved ‘Picasso’s Mother and Child’ more than any of the others.” So that statement is in quote marks, the painting’s name would be in single marks. Quote marks indicate it’s a spoken word, but I have to indicate that the title of the painting is the actual title, and I do that with single marks.
So double marks, except if it’s a quote within a quote. I know you can do it!
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