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Connoisseur
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Writing within writing: Italics vs Quotations
So, I've noticed a tendency in my writing: whenever something is written within my stories, like a note or a sign, I sometimes put them in quotes and sometimes do italics.
I'm pretty sure this is due to ignorance of some English rule I was taught and long-since forgotten. Can anyone inform me what the proper instances are for them, or provide proper learning material (PDFs would be great)? I know things like book titles are italicized while chapters are in quotes, but I can't recall seeing anything about the a note or sign or whatnot. |
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#2 |
cacoethes scribendi
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I don't think there is a rule, or not that I've ever found.
I think context is relevant. A character might look up and read a sign that says "blah blah blah". Since the context indicates "says", it seems appropriate to use quotes, but in other circumstances I'm inclined to use italics. Some books, particularly for younger readers, even put very short items always in their own paragraph - see next. In situations where it is a note or similar, presented as separate paragraphs, then indentation on both sides is fairly common. Or sometimes centring for very short items. The indentation makes any other font change optional. In paper publications such are often presented in special font. You can do the same in ebooks but care is needed. In one of my novels I used a fixed width font indented on both sides to represent the email messages passed back and forth. Be careful though, a little can go a long way with this sort of stuff. |
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Grand Sorcerer
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The Chicago Manual of Style rule is to use initial caps for short signs in running text. So, e.g., The door was marked Do Not Enter.
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#4 | |
Connoisseur
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#5 |
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My personal preference would be to also use quotation marks. It is, after all, quoted text. I.e. The door was marked "Do Not Enter".
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#7 | |
cacoethes scribendi
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Quote:
However, my experience in fiction is that there is a lot of variation, hence my original post. Last edited by gmw; 03-13-2019 at 08:03 PM. |
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#8 |
Nameless Being
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#9 |
cacoethes scribendi
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Good catch. As I understand it, in the US expect the punctuation to fall inside the quote regardless of whether it was part of the original text, in the UK it depends on the style you are following. New Hart's Rules, for example, merely notes the difference exists, noting that the US approach to this is "followed in much modern British fiction and journalism."
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Quote:
E.g. She said "Is it raining?" But Did she say "It is raining"? Last edited by HarryT; 03-14-2019 at 03:53 AM. |
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#11 |
cacoethes scribendi
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Just for fun, Harry, I believe this is correct:
Did she say "Is it raining?" (According to New Hart's Rules: "When the quoted sentence ends with a question mark or exclamation mark, this should be placed within the closing quotation mark, with no other mark outside the quotation mark—only one mark of terminal punctuation is needed") Last edited by gmw; 03-14-2019 at 07:04 AM. |
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#12 | |
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#13 | |
cacoethes scribendi
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Quote:
He asked, "Did she say 'Is it raining?'" That is, the first part of the rule says: "When the quoted sentence ends with a question mark or exclamation mark," (in this case "Is it raining?") "this should be placed within the closing quotation mark", and so that would talking of the inner quotes. |
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#14 |
The Grand Mouse 高貴的老鼠
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had had had had had had had
![]() English is flexible enough that it's possible to make a nonsense of any rule. |
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