What is the difference between italics and quotation marks

Evil and his 'laser' beam. Anyway, in the second example, you're using quotes to ensure that the reader knows you're referring to the word 'apple' alone.

It's a helpful convention for explaining or describing things. It can avoid confusion, like in the following example:. The first phrase is ambiguous; the reader might think that the password is actually 'apple backwards'.

But in the second case, it's clear that the password is 'elppa'. Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. Is there a difference between Quotes and Italics? Are there times when either quotation marks or italics would be accurate? Though italics tend to be more common, quotation marks can be used when talking about words.

And we also use italics to set off letters used as letters, such as the letter b. The main concern when either italics or quotation marks will suffice is consistency.

If you choose one style at the beginning of your work, maintain that style throughout. So, I hope this article has served as a refresher for the differences between italics and quotation marks. As always, for more nuances of English grammar, check out the Chicago Manual of Style and stay tuned for the next article! Thank you, Brooke. But not all big events are capitalized.

If the event was written the Great Scone Scourge? You might want to cap that. We do, after all, capitalize the Black Death. Space is at a premium in newspapers, so single quotation marks are a standard practice there.

But either would work and be acceptable. You actually have options here. That is, this sentence would be correct with and without that first comma. Comma use depends on the intended meaning. I see asking me to take her son as a nonessential phrase. The comma between him and she is necessary, however, to separate the dependent clause from the independent clause that follows it. Your example is closer to examples in CMOS that show run-in quotations section CMOS calls similar constructions a syntactical part of the sentence.

As for the capital letter, CH shows a capital letter in their example. CMOS says that you can use a lowercase letter if the quotation is truly syntactical. Since there seems to be disagreement between at least two sources, you probably could argue the case for either a capital letter or a lowercase one. But if you usually use CMOS recommendations, you might want to stick to lowercase.

As for the quotation marks themselves, since it is a quote, use them. We can use italics for words used as words, so italics is an option. And I think that argument could be made. Oh, thank you so much! The more I searched, the more confused I became! You explained it so well, I actually understood your answer! Again, thank you! The name of the app is Think Dirty. I have a question about ellipses in the middle of a sentence like this:. I put on one of those damn hats again, too worried about the drugs she took and who gave them to her.

Is an ellipsis the proper punctuation in that example? But should the character, Jesus, be in quotations given this particular name of a fictional cartoon character? I have a question for you. And though the lawyer is the one physically reading it to the niece I want the readers to get a sense of the aunt.

Like what they do in movies. When you see someone reading a letter or something from someone and instead of the readers voice, we hear the writers voice? Am i making sense? If I am including segments of newspaper articles or segments of legal documents in my genealogical research writing, do I, or can I, italicize it and set it off in the center of the page for clarity or emphasis? Can you confirm this on your end?

No recasts, please. Thank you for any help. The letter of the law makes for some pretty poor options for a few of these words. And of course, no italics needed with the use of the quotation marks. This is in CMOS 7. CMOS shows no italics for their example, just the plural phrase in quotation marks.

Except, of course, if the whole word, the plural version, is in italics. Aside from Chicago, I think these could work they are much clearer. The standard way to make plurals adding s or es works well. The apostrophe would likely cause too much confusion. I agree with CMOS 7. Hi, Beth. Would this be correct, or should I keep it all in roman? Yet yours seems a straightforward conversation. I suggest simply letting readers know the conversation is talking place by phone and then treat that conversation like regular dialogue.

Whether characters are face to face, in different rooms of a house, or talking by phone, if the reader gets to hear everything, this is normal dialogue. Is the punctuation correct as is, and if I wanted to get rid of the em dashes, could I still use a question in the middle of the sentence? Cassie, the question inside the dashes works well. But for fiction, stick with the dashes. Hi, thanks for this informative article. I have a question about signs.

Jared, the Chicago Manual of Style recommends headline style for signs in running text—no quotation marks or italics. So that means capitalize first and last words and almost all words except for conjunctions, prepositions, and articles. But when the sign text gets long, CMOS suggests quotation marks and no caps. For your example, keep it as is—capitalizing the three words. What a rich resource you have provided us with, Beth Hill! I am having difficulty finding an answer to a specific question.

Foreign language organization names: to italicize or not? In the work I am currently editing, the writer sometimes refers to a Spanish organization name, and often but not always she also provides the English translation or actual English version, when there is one in use. My tendency is to start with the English and put the Spanish version next to it in brackets, italicised, and, if I only have the Spanish version, to simply italicize it.

Am I on the right track? Many thanks if you can help me! It is confounding because all nouns are names of things. Capitalize proper nouns, not common nouns. So Fido proper noun is capitalized, but dog common noun is not.

Titles are covered under proper nouns: Aunt Margaret title of a specific person and proper noun is capitalized, but my aunt common noun is not; my aunt Margaret gets a mix of capitalization.

Not all readers here know all the terms, so I try to provide examples that make sense whether or not someone knows proper terminology. That is what I was trying to stress with my examples. For example:. In witting, when you say, I gave him a look that said, you wanna bet? Would you use quotations or italicize? Online News Publish. What punctuation are you worried about? Thank you Beth. To have it all collected is very helpful. Hi Beth. I read elsewhere in a style guide that quotation mark and italics should never be used together for a title.

But I have a dilema. How should I handle this? Do I supplant one rule in favor of the other? And if so, which one? Thanks for your input. Go with the quotation marks, no italics. Let the quotation marks do the work. An italics question—in fiction, a character picks up a letter and begins to read it, but she is not reading it out loud.

Does the text of the letter go in italics? I was asked to comment on a document which contained this phrase quotation marks deliberately left out for clarity here :. The single quotation marks seem wrong to me. This post was very helpful. Thanks for the refresher. This post is amazing! What do you think of using all-caps for the words you want to emphasize?

Not recommended? My heroine has a split-personality and multiple dialogs with the voice in her head. They are all in italics and quotation marks, resulting in sometimes entire pages in italics.

Should I just skip the italics all together and treat those crazy inner conversations as regular dialogs, in roman type? I hope you still have patience to reply to comments on this 2,5-year-old post. This post is really good. My book starts from a writings of a journal and later it quickly gets to the scene where the writer of that journal is distracted by something. How do I separate the scene and the words of journal?

Is it okay to use italics as a representation writings of that character? Please reply. I have encountered an entire line quoted in foreign words in a written short story that I am trying to proofread. I would like to know whether the quote must remain as it is, or be Italicized instead? I would greatly appreciate if you d reply. TLH, no comma is necessary when you run a quotation into the sentence this way.

So if you use the quotation marks, no comma. But a single word—and a title, at that—makes the situation different. Or you could rewrite. Hi Beth, Thank you so much for all your work! I refer to it a lot and there is so much in here that I have to keep coming back — maybe you could condense some of the Comment questions into an addendum article to make it easier to access this great content that comes out here?

Thank you for sharing your wisdom and knowledge and for being so patient! I am currently editing a book that has characters frequently remembering things someone told them.

Do I put them in quotation marks, italics, recast them not as verbatim, or what? Could you please weigh in on the following: Katherine says: January 15, at pm Hi! Have you ever thought about publishing an ebook or guest authoring on other blogs?

I know my subscribers would value your work. If you are even remotely interested, feel free to shoot me an email. Thank you for a very useful blogpost. I have a question however not covered here, regarding the use of quoting radio broadcasts, both fictional and real, in my novel. How might these best be punctuated? My brother suggested I may like this web site. He was once totally right. This submit actually made my day. What about the names of festivals like Rakshabandhan? Shouod festivals be italicized?

Well Rakshabandhan is a Hindu festival. Hi; great article and advice! I needs to spend a while finding out much more or understanding more. Thank you for excellent info I used to be searching for this info for my mission. Thank you!

Painstakingly detailed article. Very useful. Or should double quotation marks always be used for such instances? Hello friends, pleasant paragraph and pleasant urging commented here, I am truly enjoying by these. The problem is something that too few people are speaking intelligently about. The problem is an issue that too few people are speaking intelligently about.

You ought to be a part of a contest for one of the most useful sites on the net. I will highly recommend this site! First off I want to say terrific blog! I was interested to know how you center yourself and clear your thoughts prior to writing. I have had trouble clearing my thoughts in getting my thoughts out. I truly do take pleasure in writing however it just seems like the first 10 to 15 minutes are generally wasted simply just trying to figure out how to begin.

Any suggestions or hints? Many thanks! A motivating discussion is definitely worth comment. To the next! Many thanks!! What could you recommend about your publish that you simply made a few days ago? Any sure? Everything published made a great deal of sense. But, what about this? I am not saying your information is not good. In my opinion, it could bring your posts a little livelier. Do you know how to make your site mobile friendly?

My web site looks weird when viewing from my apple iphone. If you have any recommendations, please share. Appreciate it! For newest information you have to pay a quick visit web and on web I found this web page as a finest web site for newest updates. This list departs from traditional and modern anniversary gift lists in that it only includes gemstones and precious metals. I am no longer sure the place you are getting your info, but great topic. I must spend a while learning more or figuring out more.

Thanks for magnificent information I used to be on the lookout for this information for my mission. I mean speech within speech. I am just about to submit some work and am concerned this is a new convention that I need to respect. I got this web site from my buddy who told me regarding this web site and now this time I am browsing this website and reading very informative content at this place.

Will Not Be Published Required. NaNo Support Page. So maybe it's not only about the words. It's about syntax. And plot. And action. It's voice and pacing and dialogue Email Address. The reader will focus on what stands out. Turn the reader's attention where you want it to go. Thank you for reading The Editor's Blog, an Internet resource for fiction writers, freelance editors, and everyone who loves words.

Write often. Edit wisely. Affiliate The Editor's Blog is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon. More Reference Books.

Subscribe to RSS Feed. Heather Day Gilbert says:. May 12, at pm. Fiction Editor Beth Hill says:. May 13, at pm. Roger Carrier says:. July 23, at pm. March 1, at pm. March 22, at pm. Rosi Hollinbeck says:. Alex Hurst says:. May 13, at am. Mira Prabhu says:. May 15, at pm. Joyce says:. October 17, at am. Peter Pollak says:. May 14, at pm. Kim Penfold says:. June 12, at pm. June 15, at pm. February 13, at pm. February 19, at pm. February 20, at am.

March 7, at pm. June 19, at am. Beverly FitzGerald says:. June 30, at pm. July 1, at pm. Deborah says:. August 20, at am. Sue says:. October 8, at pm. Corene says:. November 2, at am. Victoria Avilan says:. December 25, at am. December 26, at pm. Tanis says:. January 14, at pm. January 15, at pm. Katherine says:. Sally McKenzie says:. July 21, , at am. July 22, , at pm. Bob B. November 18, , at pm. Dinora says:. February 15, , at am. February 17, , at pm.

February 19, , at am. February 23, , at pm. Rob White says:. February 17, , at am. February 22, , at am. Cas C. February 18, , at pm. Lela B. April 8, , at pm. April 15, , at pm. Tanya says:. September 13, , at am. September 20, , at pm. DJ says:. January 17, , at pm. January 23, , at am. Irene Childs says:. June 22, , at pm. June 28, , at am. Wendy Weiss says:. September 22, , at pm. October 21, , at pm. Me says:. September 27, , at pm. October 25, , at pm. Sofia says:.

December 5, , at am. January 20, , at pm. Barbara Dunton says:. January 25, , at pm. March 13, , at pm. MW says:. February 8, , at am. February 14, , at pm. Nathan Brown says:. October 12, , at am. October 20, , at am. Robin Bradley says:. January 15, , at pm. Melissa says:. January 28, , at am. February 4, , at am. Viktor says:.

January 29, , at am. February 6, , at pm. Todd T says:. June 10, , at pm. June 15, , at pm. John says:. September 23, , at pm. September 26, , at am. ML says:. February 4, , at pm.

February 6, , at am.