How To Write Quotes Within Quotes

We could put quotes inside quotes inside quotes inside quotes and the quotes would always be in alternating quotation marks doubles or singles.

How to write quotes within quotes. In memories of west street and lepke robert lowell a conscientious objector or c o recounts meeting a jehovah s witness in prison. Quotations and capitalization sometimes the text inside quotation marks is capitalized other times it isn t. In british english use single quotation marks for if you are using double quotation marks for the outside quote use single quotation marks for the inside quote. In american english use double quotation marks for quotations and single quotation marks for quotations within quotations. Here are the three takeaway points.

In british english you start with single quotation marks and then double quotation marks. But then someone told me pay it no mind lad note that the period goes inside both the single and double quotation marks. Indicate the secondary source using double quotation marks. Bobbi said i read an interesting article titled a poor woman s journey. 4 use single quotation marks around the quoted portion.

The american rule is that periods always go inside all quotation marks. So for dialogue the spoken text opens and closes with double quotation marks. Give the name of the first person who is speaking at the beginning of the first quote and then name the person he or she quotes before beginning the second quote. When you come to the second quote use a comma before beginning the quote within a quote. American usage is yes it should be inside the quotes even if it is not part of the quotation.

Make sure you are very clear with the names of who is saying what. Capitalization of the quoted material depends on the material itself if you re quoting a complete sentence you should start the quote with a capital letter even if the quote is placed in the middle of a sentence. Are you a c. British usage has it outside unless it is part of the quotation as far as i know. In ame the outermost quotation mark is a double.

The first nested quote would then be inside single quotation marks and a. One level of nesting the most common reason for nesting punctuation is shown in section 1 3 7 of the mla handbook p. When you need to present a quotation within a quotation use double quotation marks around the quotation incorporated into your text and single quotation marks around the quotation within that quotation. If you re using single quotes on the outside use doubles on the inside. As a courtesy make sure there is visible space at the start or end of a quotation between adjacent single and double quotation marks.