May
2007
Personal Curriculum #3
All right! Here is your fantastic mini lesson on commas and quotation marks! First the basics. This >>>>> (“)<<<<< is a quotation mark. It is used as either a double quotation (“) or a single quotation (‘) and it is mainly used in speech. When you are writing a dialouge of people talking you use it like this. Jim said, “Look at that flying toaster!” The part he actually said is within the quotation marks and it is seperated from the part introducing it by a comma. Use of either double or single quotations is correct but if you want to use speech inside speech you must always use the opposite one from the one you started with. Ex: ” Jim said, ‘look at that flying toaster,’ ” recalled Joe. OR ’ Jim said, “look at that flying toaster,” ’ recalled Joe. Notice the difference in the placement of the double and single quotations. Quotations can somtimes be used in irony, humor, and emphasis but only carefully, because if they are used in a conversation they could be easily confused with speecg quotations and confuse the reader. Commas and quotations go hand in hand. A comma looks like this >>>>>(,)<<<<<. You use commas in speech to seperate the introduction from the speaking, but the comma has many other uses. It’s top three uses include using it to list things (ex. use red, purple, watermellon, etc.) to join two independent clauses (a group of words that can function as a sentence) , and to insert a related but interrupting sentance into another sentance. Most of this information was found on Wikipedia.com and translated to normal language. For more punctuation and it’s use please go there. Write on!
