Comments on: Punctuation Marks: Quotation Marks

By: Sniffy

Sniffy — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 10:04:07 +0000

I would agree with Sharolyn on this one. If you close the quotes at the end of a paragraph and then open them again at the beginning of the next, it could appear that someone else is speaking.

By: Melissa Donovan

Melissa Donovan — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 18:41:33 +0000

I generally advise against writing a story through characters’ thoughts. Readers usually prefer stories that are told through action and dialogue. My recommendation would be to format the thought dialogue without the tags. For example: What would be better? Note that “S thought” is not included. Having said that, please consider this a very loose suggestion. I would need to review your text and overall concept in full in order to make a specific recommendation.

By: Cheryl

Cheryl — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 13:06:27 +0000

Thank you for addressing this topic. I am writing a children’s story that is primarily written through the character’s thoughts. For example, S thought, “what would be better?” Or, “this is the best!”,S thought. I gather I should be using italics instead of quotation marks and watching where I place my punctuation marks. I hope I understood your response correctly. Thank you.

By: Melissa Donovan

Melissa Donovan — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 18:49:11 +0000

Hi Nicole,

This comments section isn’t really a place to get professional advice on commercial writing. As a quick answer, however, I would format the questions into a bulleted list and eliminate the quotation marks. Also, the first letter in each sentence (a question is a sentence) should be capitalized. Good luck!

By: Nicole Lilienthal

Nicole Lilienthal — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 20:37:31 +0000

Hi Melissa,
I am a speech-language pathologist and I have a question regarding a problem I face in report writing for my profession.
Here is an example from a report:
The client was engaged in converstation and independently answered the following questions: “how are you?”; “how old are you?”; “where do you live?”; and “are you married?”.

Can you please tell me if my punctuation and capitalization are correct?
Thanks for your help!
Nicole