Quotation marks (‘ ’) or (“ ”) - Easy Learning Grammar

Direct speech

• ‘Have you been to the new shopping precinct yet?’ enquired Shona.
  
  
• “I’ve already seen it,” John replied.

• The comma comes inside the quotation marks, unless the reporting verb is positioned inside a reported sentence that itself does not require a comma.

• ‘There is’, Monica said, ‘nothing we can do about it.’

Other uses

• to draw attention to a word

• The word ‘book’ can be used as a noun or a verb.

• to indicate an unusual use of a word

• She pointed out that websites used for internet voting could be ‘spoofed’.

• to suggest that the writer want to be distanced from a word.

• I don’t agree with this ‘mercy killing’ business.

• Note that the full stop comes after the quotation marks in such cases.