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There are two uses for quotation marks. For speech, the double quotation mark works best:
Nigel was heartbroken: "Fiona has decided a Porsche looks common."
Nigel said, "Fiona has decided a Porsche looks common."
Note that you can introduce the quoted speech with a colon or a comma (and in other ways). Note also that the full stop goes inside the quotation marks.
If you are reporting speech that continues over several paragraphs, you don't have to put the final double quotation mark in until the very end, but start each new paragraph with an opening double quotation mark to remind the reader what's happening.
Now, on to single quoatation marks. If Nigel is quoting his fiancé's actual words, we have to use single quotation marks inside the double ones, to avoid confusion:
Nigel said, "Fiona has decided a Porsche 'looks common'."
The other use of quotation marks is to highlight individual words. Nigel may wish to indicate that he doesn't think the word 'common' is an appropriate word for anyone to use:
Nigel was unimpressed when Fiona told him a Porsche looked 'common'.
(Nigel has remembered his roots and disapproves of the word 'common'.)
This example also shows the advantage where possible of reserving single quotation marks for highlights and double marks for reported speech:
Nigel was unimpressed when Fiona told him a Porsche looked "common".
(Nigel is directly quoting Fiona.)
In a business context, the most common error when using quotation marks is to use double quotation marks to highlight a word:
Many banks offer "low cost" loans but...
This example is better if you use a single quotation mark. |
