Everyday English by Michelle Finlay

Author:Michelle Finlay
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781843176800
Publisher: Michael O' Mara Books
Published: 2011-05-11T16:00:00+00:00

US usage: “My father told me his life story. ‘Son, I want you to remember me’, he began.”

The tendency in the UK is to place punctuation marks within quotation marks, while in the US, punctuation is placed outside as a matter of course. While the US solution makes life simpler, the UK rule seems more logical: if the punctuation is part of the direct speech, put it within the quotation marks. If the punctuation relates to the rest of the sentence rather than the quoted material, place it on the outside.

Indirect speech requires no quotation marks: He asked his friend if he had said look out.

Essays, Poems, Chapters

Whereas the names of long works of fiction, non-fiction, music, film and so on are usually printed in italics, shorter works tend to appear within quotation marks. These include essays, poems (except very long ones), short stories and songs.

Other Uses

Inverted commas are often used to draw attention to a special word or phrase within a sentence. For example:

The mathematics teacher said that the kind of maps we were studying are called ‘topological’.

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