4.14 Quotation marks

• Double quotes:

Use double quotation marks around a person’s direct statement, or a verbatim quotation from any source. The full stop will come inside the quotation mark.

○ Example

>The woman at Orchha haat said, “We sell onions and potatoes here.”

At times, a double quote may be used for sarcasm or irony.

○Example

>In the NCRB data for Rajasthan, Bihar and Bengal, not a single farmer took his or her own life. But thousands of “Others” did.

If a direct quote runs for more than a paragraph, don’t close the quote at the end of that paragraph. The close quotes will come at the end of the last paragraph of the quotation. But each paragraph will have opening double quotes, to indicate that the quoted text continues.

• Single quotes:

If a quote is being used within a quote, use single quotes:

○Example

>She said, “I ‘inadvertently’ messed up the data.”

Use single quotes also if a new or unexplained term is being used, and you don’t want to sound sarcastic.

○Example

>The larger theme of ‘Project Day’ at the VidyaVanam school in Tamil Nadu was rice.

If a lecture title or academic paper is mentioned in a sentence, use single quotes.

○Example

>Her Kurup Memorial Lecture was titled ‘Slumdogs versus Millionaires’.

Note: If a word/ phrase in single quotes ends the sentence, the single quote will come before the full stop.

If a block passage or a long quote from a published source (book/ report/ document/ letter/ etc.) is used, indent both sides. Don’t italicise or place within double quotes.