Before we actually begin writing any essays, let's work on the mechanical part
of our writing: that is when you're actually writing, how do you use things
like commas, and periods, and quotation marks. These things are very hard for
people to understand sometimes, but there are very clear rules to follow.
So let's first go into quotation marks.
There are many kinds of punctuation used in English, and I like to think of
punctuation as a kind of traffic light or a traffic sign. They tell you, when
you're reading, where to slow down, where to speed up, where to stop.
And so the punctuation is a way to help the reader read along and understand
your meaning better. Understanding how these marks work is important, especially
if you want to get a good composition finished. And remember inside of our qec
software, any mistake you make is going to be found. So, of course, you can correct
it later, but it would be good if you learn how this works. Because when you
make a mistake sometimes, it's confusing why is it a mistake if you don't know
that there's actually a rule. So let's go ahead and look at the quotation mark a
little bit more closely. When should you be using a quotation mark? I think some
of these things, you might be familiar with, and others you're not. So, of course
if you copy something or quote something that somebody says--that is you write
exactly what they wrote--- or you write well, exactly what they said, that's
called a quote. That needs to be inside quotation marks. If you have a title of
an article or a book chapter, those go inside quotation marks.
Sometimes, people think that book names go inside quotation marks. No, that's not
true, only chapters of books or articles. In other words, a chapter goes inside
quotation marks, because a chapter is part of something bigger; it's part of a
book. So this part is smaller than that, and it's the name of part of that, so we
put it in quotation marks. Titles of essays can be in quotation marks. You can
put titles of songs inside quotation marks, and titles of poems inside
quotation marks. Okay, well, let's look at the most common example here, which is a
quote: "Where did she go?" That means somebody said that; somebody said, "Where
did she go?" So I'm writing exactly what that person said, "Where did she go?" That's
a question, so, does the question mark go inside or outside the quotation mark?
Here's a perfect example of a problem people face. Does it go inside a
quotation or does it go outside the quotation? Well, let's go ahead and look
at some more of this and we can understand some of these rules a little
bit better. Let's look at this rule number one, here: "When a period or comma
is at the end of a quotation, always place the period or comma inside the
quotation mark. And let's look at this example here: "Yesterday, Bill told me"
comma quotation, "I just cannot study more." Period. So, Bill said this, so this is a
quote.
The quote goes inside quotation marks, because it's exactly what bill said. And
importantly ..., the period goes inside, inside. You see that? So, look carefully. It
is no space before, no space after quotation mark, and then we have space
after the quotation mark. That's the end of the sentence. So, pay attention to
those spaces and no spaces, because I often see people get these wrong; even
native speakers, they get confused about how this works. How about a colon, a dash,
or a semicolon? They should always be placed outside the quotation mark when
the colon, semicolon, or dash occurs at the end of the quotation. Let's look at an
example: "He spoke quite loudly,".. And here's the quotation. "I cannot go on";... Then we
have a semicolon... "his feet ,however, began moving forward." Okay, so, in this case, what
we have is the quotation. It's here. What did he say? He said, "I cannot go on". This
is a semicolon, here. Why do we use a semicolon? Because before the semicolon,
is an independent clause, after the independent clause. So this could be two
sentences together. You can put two sentences together with a semicolon and
...and look carefully: One space after the semicolon, no space before. So
semicolon goes outside the quotation mark. How about the problem of the
question mark? This is really common problem. Question mark can sometimes go
inside, and sometimes they go outside. So, let's look at a couple examples to see
how this works. "John asked me, 'will you come with me?'" Okay. So, here, the question
mark is inside. Why is it inside? Because the quotation
is "will you come with me?" That means that's what John said. John asked a
question. And so when the quotation is a question, then that's inside the
quotation mark; however, sometimes the question is not really a question inside
the quotation. So, let's look at another example.
"Mary quickly asked him, 'Do you love me?'" This is the same case. What did Mary say?
Mary said, "Do you love me?" This is a question, "Do you love me?"
so this goes inside. There's no period here. There's nothing else here, nothing
more, just a space afterwards, because it's over, that's that's it. We're done.
Now, another case is when the quotation is not a question. Let's look at an
example: "Do you believe she said, 'I never loved him'"? So what did she say?
She said, "I never loved him." That's not a question.
But the sentence, "Do you believe.. do you.." That is a question. So, here, you can see
quotation and then question mark, question mark outside, question mark
outside of the quotation mark. "How could he say, 'You can't stay with me'"? "How could
he say?"-- That is a question... "You can't stay with me"? The quote is not a question, so
the question mark goes outside. And again, no space before quotation mark, no space
at the quotation mark. And then, you have the question mark, and then after that is
a space. Then you have another sentence over here.
Okay, so what about another case? Both the quotation and the sentence are
questions. Then the question mark will be placed inside. So, let's take an example
of that: "Is it possible..." This is a question, isn't it? "Is it possible that
she asked, 'When will all of the money be ready?'" Here's the quotation, "When will all
of the money be ready?" Is that a question? Yes, the quotation is a question. Is the
sentence a question? "Is it possible..." Yes, the sentence is a question; therefore, it
goes inside, question mark goes inside, no space before, no space after. Pay
attention to the spacing, and inside. You can use quotations around, as we said,
articles and chapters of a book. And here's an example of how that works.
Spring Snow; that's a book; book names are underlined. I know many people like to
use the quotation mark for a book name. That is not correct.
In fact, you should be very careful to not use quotation marks too much, because
they really do have a very specific meaning, which is the things we've
already cited and most often exactly what somebody said. Spring snow contains
a chapter called "Love." Love is a chapter of a book. It goes inside quotation marks,
and you can see the period. The period is inside the quotation mark. "Bobby McFerrin
song 'Don't worry Be happy' is a great song to listen to." "Don't worry Be Happy"
is the name of a song. It goes inside quotation marks. Okay, I hope that clears
up quotation marks. Those are the few rules you need to follow. And if you do
that, you're going to be doing well. Pay attention to the spacing. Remember,
there's no space before the quotation marks. And if your period is inside, if
your question mark is inside, there's no spacing going on there.
So be careful.