Quotations
Q. I am a fourth-grade teacher and am currently teaching my students how to insert dialogue into their personal narratives. Can the students insert the dialogue directly into their paragraph, or do they need to create a new paragraph and indent? What is the rule? When looking at novels I see dialogue being written each way. Answer »
Q. I have a question concerning the use of brackets. In the sentence below, taken from an NPR article, what purpose do the brackets serve? “In almost two years, we find about 31 percent of papers with unreasonable copy[ing] and plagiarism,” she says, shaking her head. Answer »
Q. Can you distinguish when a single quotation mark is used versus a double quotation mark? I’m not referring to quotes within quotes, but about the use of single quotation marks closer to linguistic uses. I see both single and double quotation marks in instances seemingly for special meaning but not limited to linguistics. (That also seemingly will drive whether a comma is placed inside or outside the closing single quotation mark.) Answer »
Q. I typed out a transcript of a video online to use in a paper. The lecturer says “uh” several times. Should I include these in my quotation or remove them? Answer »
Q. I’m looking for the etched-in-stone rule that states that a dialogue tag should be lowercase after a question (i.e., “What is it?” she asked, as opposed to “What is it?” She asked). I have both the 15th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style and the trial online version here and have so far been unable to find it. Any help is appreciated. Answer »
Q. How do you handle text-message content? Is it put in quotation marks or do you use italics? Answer »
Q. Although CMOS 6.9 states clearly that commas and periods should always go within quotation marks, it doesn’t provide a solution when you have to put the single and double quotation marks together, as in “He announced, ‘These quotation marks look terrible.’” Is there a prescribed amount of space that goes between the single and double quotes in these cases? Answer »
Q. Lots of questions here seem to boil down to a choice between rigorous consistency and a pleasing typographic appearance. Here’s another one. I was wondering about double quotation marks when shortening an article title in a footnote. If the full title of the article is “‘Un bell’oratorio all’uso di Roma’: Patronage and Secular Context of the Oratorio in Baroque Rome,” should I leave the double quotation marks when giving the short title, i.e., “‘Un bell’oratorio all’uso di Roma’”? It looks a bit silly, this doubly enshrined title. I would appreciate your take on this! Answer »
Q. Can I write dialogues without quotation marks as the author Frank McCourt did in his three memoirs? Answer »
Q. I teach my students to keep the capitalization used in the original text when quoting in a paper or to indicate with brackets when the original text has been changed. I also tell them to alter the original casing to mesh into their sentences. However, examples in some English grammar books maintain the capitalization on poetry, even when meshing into a writer’s sentence, e.g., “Frost writes of the separation of ‘Two roads.’ ” Is this correct, or should it be “the separation of ‘[t]wo roads’ ”? Answer »
Q. I’m working on a manuscript where the author starts many block quotes with lowercase words. Is this okay? Answer »
Q. Microsoft Word just suggested I change “What do you mean ‘unfortunately?’ ” to “What do you mean ‘unfortunately’?” Should I tell Word to leave me alone, or am I mistaken in believing that, in American English, quotation marks envelop all neighboring punctuation? Answer »
Q. I’m in the process of editing a nonfiction book about a murder trial that took place in Green Bay, Wisconsin, in 1983. I need to know whether courtroom testimony that the author quotes from the public record—and has set inside quotation marks—must be reproduced precisely as it was transcribed in the courtroom (except for elisions and paraphrases of testimony not set in quotes). Answer »
Q. I am editing a manuscript that uses quotations from British texts. Can I silently change British spellings (such as “colour”) into American spellings in quotations? Answer »
Q. I’m editing a manuscript in which the author wants to add emphasis to a lengthy quotation. The original already has several phrases in italics. Is there a proper and/or elegant way to add emphasis to an already emphasized passage without confusing the reader? Answer »
Q. I am in the awkward situation of trying to cite an excerpted book review that appears on the dust jacket of an updated edition of said monograph. While it seems technically correct to cite the name of the reviewer, the book being reviewed and its author, the title of the original source of the review, “quoted in” Book Being Reviewed, 2d ed. (publication information), jacket; this also strikes me as convoluted and vaguely ridiculous. Finding the source of the original review would provide a way out, I know, but I’d rather not sift through several months worth of copies of the Daily Telegraph (c. 1965). Answer »
Q. I am editing a manuscript in which the author loves to use quotation marks around special expressions that are not to be taken literally. Eliminating them is not an option. The problem I am having is that at the end of a quotation that ends a sentence he often uses ellipsis. Here is an actual example: It might be illuminating to pursue the relationship between Goffmanian and Christian usages of stigma and stigmatization in the context of guilty knowledge, confession, healing, guilt, forgiveness, and “the marked man/woman.” . . . (The ellipsis is his.) What do you think? Answer »
Q. When quoting from a book and using the four-dot method of ellipsis, can one arrange the order of sentences differently from how they appear in the book? Could one, for example—in an attempt to give a concise, overall impression of the author’s thinking—begin with a quote from chapter 10, then from chapter 4, and finally from chapter 1? A colleague and I have both looked in the manual and couldn’t find anything. Answer »
Q. I am copyediting a historic work which includes quite a number of implied quotes, such as the following, where no quotation marks have been used: As Robert Choquette says, the wide range of theological tenets within Protestantism makes too much generalization about the feelings and reactions of clergy dangerous. I realize there are situations where quotation marks are not required, such as: Jane asked him to come to dinner but he said he had another commitment, but “As Robert Choquette says” certainly reads as though a direct quote should follow. Am I being too paranoid or pedantic? I would much appreciate your advice on this. Answer »
Q. If I’m making a song title possessive and the song title is plural, what would I do? For example, would I write . . . Answer »
Q. We do a lot of excerpts from articles and books at my job. But folks here are unhappy because they cannot distinguish between ellipses that existed in the originals and ones that we have inserted to indicate missing material. I can find no mention of how to deal with this quandary in The Chicago Manual of Style. Please help—many reprints lie ahead! Answer »
Q. When is it appropriate to use quotation marks to set off a term that is being defined or described in academic writing? I edit casebooks and journal articles for law professors, and authors will often write sentences such as: Answer »
Q. Dear CMOS, I’m proofreading a reissue of a children’s mystery novel. The following appears in the original edition: “I said don’t move.” Is this styled and punctuated correctly? I feel I should recast it to “I said, ‘Don’t move.’ ” But something about the brevity of the command “don’t move” makes me waver and want to leave it as is (or find another punctuation style), treating the line as one might treat “I said no.” I can’t seem to wrap my head around this. Help! Many thanks. Answer »
Q. In quoting historical letters or correspondence, what is the current accepted practice as far as leaving mistakes or clarifying mistakes for modern readers? Is it dependent on the work? Answer »
Q. I am working on a book about writing. May I quote briefly from the published work of other writers, with full attribution? By “briefly,” I mean no more than two sentences. Thank you. Answer »
Previous Page | Next Page