[MUSIC PLAYING] - Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Level Up, a series that aims to help you improve your writing and communication skills. This episode tackles the topic of quotation marks, including six ways to use them and some essential rules to follow. 

Believe it or not, quotation marks are more complex than they seem. So let's all learn something together and break down the finer details in this video. And before you go, make sure you visit grammarly.com to see how you can download free communication assistance today. Off we go. 

Quotation marks are a type of punctuation used to show direct quotes, dialogue, and certain titles, or otherwise to set aside words in text. Here are six main uses for quotation marks and examples of how to use them. Use number one, quote a source directly. 

If you're using the same word, sentence, or phrase as another author, put those words in between quotation marks. This is most common in nonfiction writing when a writer uses a phrase or sentence from a pre-existing source, usually to support their thesis. 

For example, Stephen Hawking warned that the Higgs boson could potentially lead to "catastrophic traffic vacuum decay in the universe caused by a bubble of the true vacuum expanding at the speed of light." Use number two, show dialogue or transcribed speech. 

Quotation marks are used to represent speech in written text. In nonfiction, they are commonly used to transcribe what a person said, as with an interview or eyewitness account. In fiction, they're used for writing dialogue, or whenever a character says something out loud. For example, "Where is the emergency room?" He asked the nurse urgently. 

Use number three, signal the titles of short works. Certain types of works, but not all, use quotation marks around their titles so that their readers know that they're a reference. Typically, the titles of shortform works like poems, short stories, and songs use quotation marks. Titles of longform works like books, films, and stage plays use italics instead. Here's an example. Written by Sylvia Plath, "Tulips" is a sad poem with a happy title. 

Use number four, set apart a word to show irony, sarcasm, or skepticism, also known as scare quotes. These are used to show that the writer doubts the validity of a word. These are common users to show irony, sarcasm, or how something is popularly termed. 

They can have the same meaning as the phrase "so-called," including suspicious insinuation. For example, my "pet" is really just a stray cat that comes by once a day. 

Use number five. Discuss words as words. If you want to discuss a word, phrase, or letter in writing without using its intended meaning, set it apart with quotation marks. For example, The "P" in pterodactyl is actually silent. 

Use number six, differentiate a nickname from a given name. And last, if you are writing a person's nickname together with your given name, set the nickname apart with quotation marks so the reader knows it's not part of their formal name. The standard is to place the quoted nickname between the first name and the surname, although that's not necessarily a rule. For example, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson can't escape his origins as a wrestler. 

After all these use cases, you might wonder, when do I need to use single quotation marks? Well, in American English, single quotation marks are used only for quotes that appear inside other quotes. If you're quoting a passage that already has a quote in it, use double quotation marks for the main quote and single quotation marks for the quote within a quote. 

For example, "My last boss used to always say, 'You sell more before lunch than the others sell in a week,'" Amira mentioned in her job interview. However, this applies only to American English, which is also used by the majority of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. 

In British English, the rules are reversed. Single quotes are used primarily for quotes, dialogue, titles, and double quotes are used only within other quotes. I hope you're even more confident now with your knowledge of quotation marks after watching this episode of Level up. Be sure to visit Grammarly.com to get started with communication assistance that will ensure your quotation marks and your writing is always polished. See you next time. 

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