Rules for Quotation Marks & Underlining

1. Rules for Quotation Marks & Underlining

2. Direct Quotations are used to report the speaker’s exact words. • Use quotation marks at the beginning and the ending of a direct quotation. • Ex. “Dinner is almost ready,” said Mrs. Johnson. -- Ex. “Flowers have meaning,” said Sophie.

3. Use commas to set off explanatory words used with direct quotations.(Whether they occur at the beginning, the middle, or at the end of the sentences.) • Ex. – Sophie said, “Flowers have meaning.” • Ex. – “Flowers,” said Sophie, “have meaning.” • Ex. – “Flowers have meaning,” said Sophie.

4. If a quotation is a question or an exclamation, place the question mark or exclamation point inside the closing quotation marks. • Ex. – “What do flowers mean?” I asked. • Ex. - “My hair is on fire!” shouted Mary.

5. If the quoted words are part of a question or exclamation of your own, place the question mark or exclamation point outside the closing quotation marks. • Ex. – Do flowers tell “secret messages”?

6. A divided quotation is a direct quotation that is separated into two parts, with explanatory words such as he said or she said between the parts. • Use a quotation marks to enclose both parts of a divided quotation. • Ex. – “A rose,” he said, “means love.”

7. Do not capitalize the first word of the second part of a divided quotation unless it begins a new sentence. • Ex. – “A rose,” he said, “sometimes means treachery.” • Ex. – “A rose usually means love,” he said. “Sometimes it means treachery.”

8. Use a comma to set off the explanatory words used with the divided quotation. • Ex. – “A rose,” he summed up, “can mean treachery or love.”

9. Remember, Cowan says…. • Commas and periods ALWAYS go INSIDE quotation marks. - Momma said, “Alligators are mean because they have all of those teeth and no toothbrush,” said Bobby Bouchier. • Bobby said, “I want to play football.” • Semicolons and colons ALWAYS go OUTSIDE the quotation marks.

10. Remember, Cowan says… • Question marks and exclamation points DEPEND ON HOW THEY ARE USED IN THE SENTENCE. • “I love Momma!” exclaimed Bobby. • Did you know that Bobby wrote a song called “I Love Water”?

11. Using Quotes in Your Writing When you use quotes in your writing follow these simple rules: • Always choose a quote that is pertinent to your topic and will enhance understanding of your thesis or depth to your discussion of the thesis. • Choose a quote that is interesting. • Quotes CANNOT stand by themselves! They need to be introduced or followed by dialogue tags such as “He states,” “She said,” etc.

12. An indirect quotation is a restatement, in different words, of what someone said. • Ex. – Shakespeare wrote that a rose would smell sweet regardless of its name.

13. An advanced technique for using quotes is to either: • Use only the part of the quote you need. When you leave out any of the quoted material, use ellipses (…). • Example: “Women feel just as men feel…they suffer from too rigid a restraint, to absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer.” • Embed quotes in your writing: • Example: “As it roamed in forlornness…like an evil spirit,” the mist engulfs everything around it, overspreading like “waves in an unwholesome sea” and producing a sense of ominous.

14. Quotes Within a Quote • If someone speaking is quoting what someone else has said, use double quotation marks for the first speaker and single quotation marks for the second speaker. • Ex. – Sarah reminded us, “If I have heard it once I have heard it a thousand times, Mrs. Cowan always says, ‘Don’t even look like you want to talk during a test, or I will give you a zero, lower your participation grade, and lock you in the Iron Maiden.’”

15. Quotation Marks with TitlesQuotation marks enclose titles of things that are SMALL in size or SHORT in length. • Short Stories “The Most Dangerous Game” • Poems “The Road Not Taken” • Essays “Self-Reliance” • Articles “Breaking the Sound Barrier” • Songs “Call Me Maybe” • TV Episodes “The Storm of the Century” • Chapters of a “Historical Introduction” Book

16. Underlining/Italicizing TitlesUnderline/italicize titles of things that are LARGE in size or LONG in length. • Books The Awakening • Plays A Raisin in the Sun • Periodicals Time, Newsweek • Films Finding Nemo • TV Programs Glee • Works of Art Mona Lisa

17. Underlining/Italicizing TitlesUnderline/italicize titles of things that are LARGE in size or LONG in length. • Long Musical C-Minor Piano Trio Compositions • Trains Orient Express • Ships Titanic • Aircraft Airforce One • Spacecraft Apollo 13

18. Misc. Underlining/Italics Rules • Italicize foreign words and letters, words, and figures that represent the figures themselves and do not contribute to the meaning of the sentence. • Ex. – Make your 6 more readable if you can. • Ex. – You have too many s’s in the word Mississippi. • Mrs. Cowan loves the phrase carpe diem.