Quotation marks, also called quotes or inverted commas, are punctuation marks used to set off speech, a quotation, or a phrase. Another important use is to mark "ironic" or "apologetic" words, sometimes called scare quotes.

They have a variety of forms in different languages and in different media.

Usage

Quotations & Speech

An opening quotation mark should appear at the beginning of each paragraph of the quoted text and a closing quotation mark at the end of the last only.

A closing quotation mark is used before, and an opening quotation mark after, phrases such as he said that interrupt speech.

British and U.S. style differs as to whether single or double quotation marks are used, but neither is an absolute rule, and a publisher’s or even an author’s style may take precedence. (The only absolute rule is consistency!) Although illogical, 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:

‘Good morning, Dave,’ said HAL.

“Good morning, Dave,” said HAL.

However, in some subject areas (such as software documentation and chemistry), it is conventional to include only what is part of the quoted phrase within the quotes, for clarity:

Enter the URL as "www.wikipedia.org", the name as "Wikipedia", and click "OK".

For speech within speech:

‘HAL said, “Good morning, Dave”,’ said Frank.

“HAL said, ‘Good morning, Dave’,” said Frank.

Do not use quotation marks for paraphrased speech:

WRONG: HAL said that “Everything was going extremely well.”

RIGHT: 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. Whether these are single or double is again a matter of style:

short fiction, poetry, etc.: Arthur C. Clarke’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.: David Bowie’s “Space Oddity”

Glyphs

A list of glyphs used as quotation marks and their Unicode (and HTML) values and names. (Warning: Some of these glyphs may not display properly in older browsers, which may substitute other sorts or a square.)

Those commonly used in English texts; enlarged:

' ‘ ’ " “ ”

'' – x'0027' – apostrophe' or apostrophe-quote

‘ – x'2018' (HTML: ‘ or ‘) – left single, or single turned comma, quotation mark

’ – x'2019' (HTML: ’ or ’) – right single, or single comma, quotation mark

" – x'0022' – quotation mark

“ – x'2019' (HTML: “ or “) – left double, or double turned comma, quotation mark

” – x'2019' (HTML: ” or ”) – right double, or double comma, quotation mark

The curved forms are preferred.

Variants of ‘ and “ are:

‛ – x'201B' – single high-reversed-9, or single reversed comma, quotation mark

‟ – x'201F' – double high-reversed-9, or double reversed comma, quotation mark

In some languages, low-9 opening quotation marks are used instead of ‘ and “:

‚ – x'201A' – single low-9, or low single comma, quotation mark

„ – x'201E' – double low-9, or low double comma, quotation mark

Some languages use angle quotation marks or guillemets:

‹ – x'2039' (HTML: &lsaquo; or ‹) – single left-pointing angle quotation mark or guillemet

› – x'203A' (HTML: &rsaquo; or ›) – single right-pointing angle quotation mark or guillemet

« – x'00AB' (HTML: « or «) – left-pointing double angle quotation mark or guillemet

» – x'00BB' (HTML: » or ») – right-pointing double angle quotation mark or guillemet

(although not common in Dutch in general, double angle quotation marks are used in Dutch government publications).

In some Asian languages, you might see the following quotation marks:

「 – x'300C' (HTML: 「) – Left kagikakko

」 – x'300D' (HTML: 」) – Right kagikakko (What is the English word for a kagikakko?)