'Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary', published in 1983, contains a very useful 'Handbook of Style' with a large section covering 'Punctuation'. There are two separate and very detailed sub-sections for quotation marks: 'Quotation Marks, Double' and 'Quotation Marks, Single'. There is so much in it - all of it very concise and interesting - that it cannot all be summarized here!
But, with its examples shown enclosed within parentheses, this clip may be useful to be aware of:
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[Single quotation marks]
1. enclose a quotation within a quotation in American usage.
(The witness said, "I distinctly heard him say, 'Don't be late.' and then heard the door close.")
2. are sometimes used in place of double quotation marks in British usage.
(The witness said, 'I distinctly heard him say, "Don't be late." and then heard the door close.')
NOTE: When both single and double quotation marks occur at the end of a sentence, the period typically falls within both sets of marks.
(The witness said, "I distinctly heard him say, 'Don't be late.' ")
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In England some schools teach pupils to use single quotes to signal to other readers that some text is not just ordinary plain words but is the name of a specific identifiable entity such as 'My watchlist', the 'Save button', etc.
Also that double quotes can be useful to stress that something is ironic or contentious. For example in this sentence:
Vandals are undesirable "contributors" to WikiAnswers.
period, comma, question mark, exclamation mark, colon, semicolon, hyphen, dash, apostrophe, brackets, quotation marks, ellipsis, slash, parentheses
Yes,
Quotation Mark
ditto mark those are quotation marks you use them when using a quote she said, "i love puppies."
Use commas to separate items in a list of three or more.Use commas to separate independent clauses when they are joined by conjunctions.Use a comma to separate a dependent clause from an independent clause.Use a comma to separate any word or phrase from the rest of the sentence that is not essential to the sentence's meaning, or that provides extra information about the subject.Use a comma to separate quotations from the rest of the sentence. (trailing commas appear inside quotation marks)Use a comma to separate an introductory element from the rest of the sentence.Use a comma to separate the names of a city from the name of a state.Use a comma to separate the day of the week, from the day of the month, and the year.
No, the quotation marks go after the comma or period.
With NO exceptions, the comma and period should go BEFORE the closing quotation mark. Always.
In American English punctuation rules, a comma typically comes before the closing quotation mark when the comma is part of the overall sentence. In British English, the comma comes after the closing quotation mark.
In American English, periods and commas are typically placed inside final quotation marks, while colons and semicolons are placed outside.
In American English, periods and commas should always be placed inside the set of quotation marks. Question marks and semicolons are placed inside the quotation marks when they belong to the quoted material but outside when they apply to the whole sentence.
Yes, a comma is typically used to separate a direct quotation from a signal phrase. For example: "According to the study," he stated, "the results were inconclusive."
No, a quotation should be closed with a punctuation mark such as a period, question mark, or exclamation point, depending on the context of the sentence. A comma should not be used to close a quotation.
In American English, the comma should be placed inside the end quotation mark when the quotation is followed by a comma. This rule applies regardless of whether the quotation is for a book title or other quoted material.
A typewriter's quotation marks looks like feet/inches marks, much as displayed on this site (' or ") where typographer's quotation marks have the proper shape, similar looking to a comma but raised at quote mark height.
The comma typically goes before the closing quotation mark when something in quotes is within a sentence. For example: She said, "I will be there soon."
Yes, the sentence is using a simile to compare the comma to a fancy chandelier by using the phrase "as if she were." This creates a imaginative comparison between the two elements.
The comma goes before the closing quotation mark when it's part of the title of an article within a sentence, as in "The New York Times," reported on the topic.