quotation mark

Quotation marks are used to enclose direct speech and quotations: "Where are you?" he called.Mae West said, "A man in the house is worth two in the street." They are also used around some titles, e.g., those of poems, short stories, and articles: Hilaire Belloc's poem "On a Sundial," but titles of novels, plays, films, etc., are conventionally printed in italics instead. Quotation marks are often used to make a particular word or phrase stand out from the surrounding text, usually to draw attention to it or because the author is using it self-consciously or skeptically: compound words such as "toothbrush" and "red currant";in a more "family-friendly" environment. Either single (' ') or double (" ") quotation marks may be used in all these cases. Where one piece of direct speech occurs within another, or within a quotation, use quotation marks of the opposite type: She said, "I told him to leave and he asked 'Why should I?'" Remember that a period or comma is always placed inside the quotation mark.