When Do You Use Quotation Marks?

Quotation marks are one of the most difficult punctuation marks to use in the English language writing. The rules determining their usage are often confusing and create a lot of issues especially for new learners. The existence of quotation marks in double marks and single marks forms add more to the already prevailing confusion regarding their usage.

Quotation marks either look like "" and are known as double quotation marks or look like '' when they are in single form. There are a number of reasons to use these quotation marks as well as rules determining their usage. Keeping these in mind can bring ease in the process of writing and reduce confusion whenever there is a need to use these marks.

For Direct Quotations

Double quotation marks surround a statement from someone else that is directly quoted in another text. For example: "When I say go away, you must go away", said the boss. There is usually a comma separating the direct quotes and the other parts of the sentence that are usually referring to the direct quote's speaker.

For Quotes Within Direct Quotations

Sometimes, an important word or phrase within a direct quotation has to be put inside another set of quotation marks to highlight its importance. In such cases, the direct quotations are written within double quotation marks while the important word or phrase is enclosed in single quotation marks within the direct quote. For example: "When I said 'I hate you', I really didn't mean it."

For Specialized Terms in Specialized Writing

While writing about a specialized field, some words used are a part of the particular jargon or register relevant to that field only. One can put those specialized terms in single quotation marks within the text to highlight such words.