8.2 | Quotation Marks And Apostrophes

##This page is still under construction. Expect revisions. It's hard to know what to include on these characters; I've answered a lot of questions about them, but in different contexts, so please have patience while this content refines itself.

On this page, we go in-depth into this set of symbols. I'm not out to give users a grammar or usage lesson, but I hope everyone understands these are all very different symbols with very different usages.

First, let's cover some semantics.

Semantics: though these aren't strictly accurate, here's what I'm calling symbols 

Please note that in EPUB/MOBI devices and apps, these marks — with the exception of the apostrophe — look 'curly' as opposed to the angled version we see here. (Thanks so much, Chrome.)

TIP: Did you know that in word processors, holding down the alt key and typing numbers in the numpad will insert special characters? Press the alt key, type the numbers, release the alt key, and voila, there's the special character. (The numbers you should type are the ASCII decimal code of whatever special character you wish to insert. Always use four digits, even if you have to add a zero or two in front of the digits, as shown in the wiki chart.)

Of course, this only works on a full keyboard that includes a numpad. There are more finger-wrenching hoops to jump through to mimic numpad keys on laptop computers.

Invest in a full USB keyboard (auxiliary), people. TOTALLY worth it for compatibility/adaptive issues like this one.

Trade secret: When I'm dealing with someone new, one of the first things I look at to judge a person's text-handling knowledge is font uniformity. The second thing I look at is their single/double quotation mark and apostrophe uniformity. An unintentional mixture of straight and curly symbols forewarns me of many, many things, especially that I need to be extra vigilant about character encoding during the production process.

Even with a project put together by a well-informed author, I will often run two simple Find/Replaces really early in the process, before any production slugs get added. I keep my word-processor set for smart (or curly) quotes, so this F/R trick works like a charm to normalize these symbols throughout a file.

This is done to make uniform the double-quotation marks surrounding dialogue, and the apostrophes in things like contractions and possessives. (This will not apply to intentional use of straight apostrophes or straight quotation marks.)

Find & Replace: Quotation Marks

Single Quotation Marks:

This step normalizes all single quotation marks.

• 1. Find: '

  2. Replace: '

  3. Click Replace All.

Double Quotation Marks:

This step normalizes all double quotation marks.

• 1. Find: "

  2. Replace: "

  3. Click Replace All.

It Gets Worse

Please note that what is discussed here only works when smart/curly quotes are shut off in Word or other processors. In Word, especially, these are tricky to shut off completely. It requires TWO changes in settings, under auto-correct and auto-format as you type.

This gets more complicated when correct usage calls for straight apostrophes or quotation marks. I am ever-so happy there are limited instances where these crop up in fiction.

Straight apostrophes are commonly used for truncation cases like: