Grammar Guide
Punctuate for Clarity, Part V, Quotations in Formal Text

(Ed. note: I do not use serial commas in this article, pursuant to AP style.)

If you’re writing a term paper, letter to the editor, business letter or cover letter, etc., and you want to include a quotation, there are specific rules to follow. If the quotation is brief, you must watch your ending punctuation, and we’ll address that, but you can separate your phrases with a comma. For example, your term paper might read as follows:

Charlotte Bronte gave her heroine, Jane Eyre, a fiery spirit. When Mr. Rochester would detain the troubled governess, she said, “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.”

The attributive phrase that precedes the quotation is set off by a comma. The quotation from Jane Eyre ends with a period in the novel, thus it takes the period at the end of the sentence before the quotation mark in the text here. If we elected to chop up the quote, ending it at at the word being, the punctuation would move. For example:

When Mr. Rochester would detain the troubled governess, she said, “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being...”.

The punctuation must denote the end of the correct sentence, and that is the outer construction—the construction without the quotation marks.

Let’s say you wanted to really impress your English professor and were quoting something from both Bronte and the Lender novel Choices Meant for Gods. Your next quote turns out to be long. You have to pay attention to your introductory punctuation and make a judgment call on whether or not to indent the quote, essentially setting it off from the body of your paper.

First of all, a quote is usually considered lengthy if it is more than three or four lines of poetry or if it is more than one paragraph of text. In these instances, you end your attributive phrase with a colon, allow a single line of space between the attributive phrase and the quote, and then set the quote off by insetting it (setting it off) in the body of your paper with left justification. MLA, Chicago Manual of Style and various English professors will dictate how far in the inset should be. If the quote isn’t all that long, but you still feel it’s long enough to warrant more than a simple comma to set it off, use a colon, but don’t go to the extreme of setting it off in the body of your paper. Here’s your example:

To demonstrate a flashback scene, I quote from Lender’s “Choices Meant for Gods”: “Hrazon had swallowed his pride and requested Drake be imprisoned, not exalted. He challenged the court to stand up for morality. The implication that they might ignore morality had offended them. By the time the court adjourned, Godric was forgotten again, and Drake was handed the leadership of Kida and an order never to come within a league of Amanda Chariss Derdriu. The latter was merely a nod or a ‘thank you for trusting the hierarchy’ tossed at Hrazon. The wizard could have turned every one of them into charred piles of bone with the blink of an eye, and Godric would have applauded him.”

Notice that you will use quotation marks to surround the quotation in this instance. For an extremely long quotation that you inset, no quotation marks are needed. The use of indenting the body of the quote in your paper signals to the reader that the section is a quotation.

For Standard English grammar resources, I recommend Creative Writer's Handbook (fourth edition) by Philip K. Jason (a friend of mine) and Allan B. Lefcowitz (available from www.prenhall.com/english) and Eats, Shoots & Leaves The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss (available from www.penguin.com). For a great gothic fiction novel that every person on the planet should read, I recommend Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. For a great epic fantasy novel that borrows elements I didn't realize I was borrowing from the great Charlotte Bronte until I had the thing complete, I recommend Choices Meant for Gods by Sandy Lender (which is available in both hard cover and as an inexpensive eBook at http://www.archebooks.com/BookIDX/Indexes/Fantasy/CMG/CMGDesc.htm.)

(Sandy Lender has been an editor in the magazine publishing industry for sixteen years, is an editor in the book publishing industry and is the author of the epic fantasy novel Choices Meant for Gods, available from www.archebooks.com.)

"Some days, I just want the dragon to win."
Tags: grammar guide, grammar, punctuation, quotations, attribution, stylebook, Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte, Choices Meant for Gods, Creative Writer's Handbook, Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Sandy Lender, fantasy novel

Grammar Guide
Punctuate for Clarity, Part IV, Quotations and Attributive Phrases in Dialogue

(Ed. note: I do not use serial commas in this article, pursuant to AP style.)

Before delving into today’s Grammar Guide, I want to define an attribute phrase as the part of the sentence that shows to whom or to what you’re attributing a quote. If I want to write a short story about a couple characters from my fantasy novel Choices Meant for Gods, I would likely attribute some obnoxious statement to Henry Bakerson. Here’s the example.

Nigel had been waiting for Amanda Chariss to return from the training arena for nearly an hour.
“Why do you look edgy?” Henry asked.
“I’m waiting for Mandy,” Nigel replied.
“Ah,” he said. “So, then, why is there still grass where you’ve been pacing?”

(A) I don’t write such stilted dialogue. This is for example purposes.
(B) The attributive phrases in the example above are “Henry asked”, “Nigel replied”, and “he said”.

Punctuation belongs at the end of a completed sentence. This means you must keep track of your quotation marks, commas and attributive phrases to make sure you don’t have stray capitalization and periods in the middle of declarative statements.

Example: “We hope Chariss saves the world,” he said.

This declarative statement includes the quote, within quotation marks, a comma to set it off from its attributive phrase, the attributive phrase with a lowercase beginning, and a period to end it all. When using dialogue, the declarative, interrogative (question) and exclamatory statements all take punctuation within the quotation marks if the quotation is ending the sentence. For instance, Henry asks Nigel, “So, then, why is there still grass where you’ve been pacing?”, and the interrogative statement ends the construction, thus it takes the question mark inside the quotation mark.

If your character’s statement is a question, and you’re following it with the attributive phrase, you don’t use the comma to set it off. You go ahead and use a question mark (or an exclamation point if you’re giving them an exclamatory statement) inside the quotation mark, and then follow it with the attributive phrase and a period to end the sentence. If you use a pronoun instead of the character’s name, lowercase the pronoun because you’re still in the middle of the sentence.

Example: “Chariss is the only one who can save us!” he yelled.

Keep in mind that if your character will be waxing poetic for an undue length of time, the opening sentence of each paragraph gets an opening quotation mark, but the closing quotation mark doesn’t come until the end, or until you interrupt with an attributive phrase. For instance, Abigail Farrier, also from Choices Meant for Gods, would go on and on forever something like this:

“When I awoke today, I thought instantly of Nigel Taiman and his lovely brown eyes,” Abigail said. “He is the handsomest man in the whole world, and I can’t imagine I’ll survive another day without him.
“Given the state of things here in Bellan, I really must make a plan to get back to Arcana City. This isn’t just to see Nigel again, but to make a change in my life.
“Father would be so disappointed to see me go, and would, no doubt, try to stop me. But I am a grown woman now and able to make decisions on my own. It’s high time I returned to the land where I grew up.”

Also keep in mind that some of your characters’ statements can be made as part of the larger sentence without the interruption of setting off the attributive phrase. You don’t always have to signpost the fact that such-n-such character is about to state something by setting a phrase off with a comma if the phrase and the character’s comment flow together as a continuous whole.

Example: Chariss gave them a quizzical look as she approached. “You two look like you’re up to no good.”
Nigel explained that “Henry’s never let a chance for harm pass him by.”

In this case, Nigel’s statement exists as part of the overall sentence so fluidly that there’s no need to set it apart. It is attributed to him without interrupting the flow with a comma.

This guide only covers the use of punctuation with quotes when working with dialogue. We’ll address punctuation when quoting material for other forms of writing, such as term papers, in tomorrow's Grammar Guide. For now, feel free to review this guide to be sure you put your punctuation within the quotation marks where it should be and don’t capitalize stray words in your attributive phrases within your sentence.

For Standard English grammar resources, I recommend Creative Writer's Handbook (fourth edition) by Philip K. Jason (a friend of mine) and Allan B. Lefcowitz (available from www.prenhall.com/english) and Eats, Shoots & Leaves The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss (available from www.penguin.com).

(Sandy Lender has been an editor in the magazine publishing industry for sixteen years, is an editor in the book publishing industry and is the author of the epic fantasy novel Choices Meant for Gods, available from www.archebooks.com.)

"Some days, I just want the dragon to win."
Tags: grammar guide, grammar, punctuation, quotations, attribution, stylebook, Choices Meant for Gods, punctuation rules, common punctuation, Creative Writer's Handbook, Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Sandy Lender, fantasy novel

Grammar Guide
Punctuation with quotations in formal text

If you’re writing a term paper, letter to the editor, business letter, cover letter, etc., and you want to include a quotation, there are rules to follow so you don’t embarrass yourself. (and so you don’t get docked any points on that thar term paper, eh?)

If the quotation is brief, your life is pretty easy. You’ve got to pay attention to ending punctuation, and we’ll address that, but you can probably separate your phrases with a comma. For example:

Charlotte Bronte gave her heroine Jane Eyre a fiery spirit. When Mr. Rochester would detain the troubled governess, she said, “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.”

The phrase that precedes the quotation is set off by a comma. The quotation from Jane Eyre ends with a period in the novel, thus it takes the period at the end of the sentence before the quotation mark in the text here. If we elected to chop up the quote, ending it at “being,” the punctuation would move. For example:

When Mr. Rochester would detain the troubled governess, she said, “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being”.

The punctuation must denote the end of the correct sentence, and that is the “outer” construction—the construction without the quotation marks.

Let’s say you wanted to really impress your English professor and were quoting something from both Bronte and the new Lender novel Choices Meant for Gods. Your next quote turns out to be long. Now your life is not quite so easy. You have to pay attention to your introductory punctuation and make a judgment call on whether or not to indent the quote, essentially setting it off from the body of your paper (or letter or whatever you’re writing).

First of all, a quote is usually considered lengthy if it is more than three or four lines of poetry or if it is more than one paragraph of text. In these instances, you end your attributive phrase with a colon, allow a single line of space between this phrase and the quote, and then set the quote off by insetting it (setting it off) in the body of your paper with left justification. MLA, Chicago Manual of Style, and various uppity English professors will dictate how far in the inset should be. If the quote isn’t all that long, but you still feel it’s long enough to warrant more than a simple comma to set it off, use a colon, but don’t go to the extreme of setting it off in the body of your paper. Here’s your example:

To demonstrate a flashback scene, I quote from Lender’s Choices Meant for Gods: “Hrazon had swallowed his pride and requested Drake be imprisoned, not exalted. He challenged the court to stand up for morality. The implication that they might ignore morality had offended them. By the time the court adjourned, Godric was forgotten again, and Drake was handed the leadership of Kida and an order never to come within a league of Amanda Chariss Derdriu. The latter was merely a nod or a ‘thank you for trusting the hierarchy’ tossed at Hrazon. The wizard could have turned every one of them into charred piles of bone with the blink of an eye, and Godric would have applauded him.”

Notice that you will use quotation marks to surround the quotation in this instance. For the extremely long quotation that you inset, no quotation marks are needed. The use of indenting the body of the quote in your paper signals to the reader that the section is a quotation.

Also notice that the use of quotation marks within the quote takes the alternate form. In other words, use single quote marks when quoting within a quote, even though the original may have used the proper, double quotation marks.

I hope these two guides on punctuation with quotations, both with dialogue and with more formal quotes, have been useful. If you have additional quotation and punctuation questions, by all means, zip them to me in the comments section and I’ll pull together additional Grammar Guides! That’s one of the reasons this site exists!

(Sandy Lender, author of Choices Meant for Gods, has been an editor in the magazine publishing industry for fourteen-plus years.)
“Some days, you just want the dragon to win.”

Grammar Guide
Punctuation with quotes and attributive phrases in dialogue

Before we delve into today’s Grammar Guide, let’s define an “attribute phrase”. This is the part of the sentence that shows who or what you’re attributing the rest of the sentence to. If I want to write a short story about a couple characters from my impending novel Choices Meant for Gods, I would likely attribute some obnoxious statement to Henry Bakerson. Here’s the example.

Nigel had been waiting for Amanda Chariss to return from the training arena for nearly an hour.
“Why do you look edgy?” Henry asked as he approached his friend.
“I’m waiting for Mandy,” Nigel replied.
“Ah,” he said. “So, then, why is there still grass where you’ve been pacing?”

(A) I don’t write such stilted dialogue. This is for example purposes.
(B) The attributive phrases in the example above are “Henry asked,” “Nigel replied,” and “he said”.

Punctuation belongs at the end of the completed sentence. This means you must keep track of your quotation marks, your commas, and your attributive phrases to make sure you don’t have stray capitalization and stray periods in the middle of your declarative statements. Here’s an example.

“We hope Chariss saves the world,” he said.

This declarative statement includes the quote, within quotation marks, a comma to set it off from its attributive phrase, the attributive phrase with a lowercase beginning, and a period to end it all. When using dialogue, the declarative, interrogative (question), and exclamatory statements all take punctuation within the quotation marks if the quotation is ending the sentence. For instance, Henry asks Nigel, “So, then, why is there still grass where you’ve been pacing?”, and the interrogative statement ends the construction, thus it takes the question mark inside the quotation mark.

If your character’s statement is a question, and you’re following it with the attributive phrase, then you don’t use the comma to set it off. You go ahead and use a question mark (or an exclamation point if you’re giving them an exclamatory statement to say) inside the quotation mark, and then follow it with the attributive phrase and a period to end the sentence. If you use a pronoun instead of the character’s name, lowercase the pronoun because you’re still in the middle of the sentence. Your example:

“Chariss is the only one who can save us!” he yelled.

Keep in mind that if your character will be waxing poetic for an undue length of time, the opening sentence of each paragraph gets an opening quotation mark, but the closing quotation mark doesn’t come until the end, or until you slap an attributive phrase in there. For instance, Abigail Farrier, also from Choices Meant for Gods and whose blog you can access at http://AbigailLovesNigel.com, would go on and on forever something like this:

“When I awoke today, I thought instantly of Nigel Taiman and his lovely brown eyes,” Abigail said. “He is the handsomest man in the whole world, and I can’t imagine I’ll survive another day without him.
“Given the state of things here in Bellan, I really must make a plan to get back to Arcana City. This isn’t just to see Nigel again, but to make a change in my life.
“Father would be so disappointed to see me go, and would, no doubt, try to stop me. But I am a grown woman now, and able to make decisions on my own. It’s high time I returned to the land where I grew up.”

Also keep in mind that some of your characters’ statements can be made as part of the larger sentence without the interruption of setting off the attributive phrase. You don’t always have to signpost the fact that such-n-such character is about to state something by setting a phrase off with a comma if the phrase and the character’s comment flow together as a continuous whole. For example:

Chariss gave them a quizzical look as she approached. “You two look like you’re up to no good.”
Nigel explained that “Henry’s never let a chance for harm pass him by.”

In this case, Nigel’s statement exists as part of the overall sentence so fluidly that there’s no need to set it apart; it is grammatically part of the sentence. It is attributed to him (even though, in the greater context, it would be obvious who’s speaking and your editor wouldn’t let you keep the attributive info at all) without interrupting the flow with a comma.

This guide only covers the use of punctuation with quotes when working with dialogue. We’ll have to address punctuation when quoting material for other forms of writing, such as term papers, in another Grammar Guide (how does Wednesday sound?). For now, feel free to review this guide to be sure you put the punctuation within the quotation marks where it should be, and make sure you don’t capitalize stray words in your attributive phrases within your sentence.

(Sandy Lender, author of Choices Meant for Gods, has been an editor in the magazine publishing industry for fourteen-plus years.)
“Some days, you just want the dragon to win.”