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Fun Easy English Classroom
November 30
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Learning objectives
In this lesson you will learn about quotation marks, an important part of English grammar. You will learn the definition of quotation marks and study usage of quotation marks.

Focus: grammar
Definition of quotation marks
  • Quotation marks look like this:

' ' or ‘ ’ or " " or “ ”

  • Quotation marks are:
  • also called quotes or inverted commas
  • used to set off speech, a quotation, or a phrase 
  • An opening quotation mark should appear at the beginning of each paragraph of the quoted text and a closing quotation mark at the end
  • The general convention is for sentence punctuation to be included inside the quotation marks, even if the punctuation is not part of the quoted sentence
Usage of quotation marks
  • Standard usage:
  • “Good morning, Dave,” said HAL.
  • For speech within speech:
  • HAL said, "Good morning, Dave",” said Frank.
  • Note: do not use quotation marks for paraphrased speech
  • Correct: HAL said that everything was going extremely well.
  • Incorrect: HAL said that “Everything was going extremely well.”
  • Titles of artistic works - quotation marks, rather than italics, are generally used for the titles of shorter works:
  • short fiction, poetry, etc.: Arthur C. Clarke’s’s “The Sentinel”
  • book chapters: The first chapter of 3001: The Final Odyssey is “Comet Cowboy”
  • articles in books, magazines, journals, etc.: “Extra-Terrestrial Relays”, Wireless World, October 1945
  • album tracks, singles, etc.: Globe’s “Fade into” 








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