Punctuation thought for Caelie

‘these ones’

• Titles (although it’s often neater to underline titles or put them in italics)
• Speech in real printed novels (bizarrely)
• Sarcasm/irony

• Quoting one or two words only in essays and in life

“these ones”

• Speech when you’re at school/in handwriting/referring to what someone has said in real life
• Quoting longer phrases/sentences (or longer) in essays and in life.

I’m not sure on all these – they’re just conventions that I’ve picked up on the way. Add to the lists if you want.

Also, you need to think about what to do when you want to quote within a quotation. You could use one type round the outer quotation and the other type round the inner quotation. I don’t think I do that, I think I stick to the conventions above but I’m not sure. In this case, I would use whatever way looks clearer for the reader.

The other little tricky issue with quotation marks is whether to put fullstops and other punctuation inside or outside the quotation marks. If the quotation takes up most of the sentence, then people seem to put the punctuation inside:

Lewis also explains that “the average amount of food eaten is in direct proportion to hunger.” 

People seem to put the punctuation on the outside if there are only a few words in the quotation: 

Lewis’s revelations, although rather unexpected, have caused scientists to rethink their theories regarding consumption – a development that has been described as ‘controversial’. 

The rules for speech are more rigid though – there must be a piece of punctuation before every speech mark. Can’t be bothered to explain that one. Just notice it!