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Quotation marks are punctuation marks used in pairs in various writing systems to identify direct speech, a quotation, or a phrase. The pair consists of an opening quotation mark and a closing quotation mark, which may or may not be the same glyph. Quotation marks have a variety of forms in different languages and in different media.
In English writing, quotation marks or inverted commas, also known informally as quotes, talking marks, [1] [2] speech marks, [3] quote marks, quotemarks or speechmarks, are punctuation marks placed on either side of a word or phrase in order to identify it as a quotation, direct speech or a literal title or name.
Quotation marks or inverted commas (informally known as quotes and speech marks) are punctuation marks used in pairs to mark a section of text as speech, a quotation, a phrase, or an unusual word. They are used in groups of 2, as a pair of opening and closing marks.
A quotation is the repetition of a sentence, phrase, or passage from speech or text that someone has said or written. [1] In oral speech, it is the representation of an utterance (i.e. of something that a speaker actually said) that is introduced by a quotative marker, such as a verb of saying. For example: John said: "I saw Mary today".
The use of quotation marks, also called inverted commas, is very slightly complicated by the fact that there are two types: single quotes ( ` ') and double quotes ( " " ).
Quotation Marks. Use double quotation marks (" ") to enclose phrases or entire sentences that were taken word for word from someone else. Quotation marks are not needed for paraphrasing.
To quote a text means to include a short section from a source, in its original form and wording, in your own work. As neither the idea nor the wording is your own, you need to signal to your reader that the words are a quotation and also include a reference to where the original can be found.
You can use single inverted commas ‘ ’ or double quotation marks “ ” to punctuate the quotation. Just make sure you stick to the same punctuation mark and don’t swap between the two.
There is one very special use of quotation marks which it is useful to know about: we use quotation marks when we are talking about words. In this special use, all varieties of English normally use only single quotes, and not double quotes (though some Americans use double quotes even here).
A couple of generations ago, it was the custom to enclose all titles in quotation marks: titles of books, titles of poems, titles of films, titles of newspapers, and so on. This usage, however, has now largely disappeared, and the modern custom is to write most titles in italics.
