10.3 Quotation Marks, Apostrophes, and Hyphens

Quotation Marks, Apostrophes, and Hyphens

Quotation marks, apostrophes, and hyphens each solve a specific problem in writing. Quotation marks tell the reader "these are someone else's words." Apostrophes show possession or mark missing letters. Hyphens glue words together so they work as a unit. Getting these right makes your writing clearer and more polished.

Quotation Marks

Double and Single Quotation Marks

In American English, double quotation marks are the default. Use them to enclose direct speech, quoted material, and titles of short works (articles, essays, songs, poems, and short stories).

Single quotation marks only show up inside double quotation marks. They handle a quote within a quote:

• She said, "The teacher told us, 'Read chapter five tonight.'"

If you ever need a third level of nesting, you'd switch back to double marks, though this rarely comes up in practice.

Punctuation Placement with Quotation Marks

Where you place other punctuation relative to closing quotation marks follows firm rules in American English:

1. Commas and periods always go inside the closing quotation mark.

   • Correct: She called it "a disaster," but I disagreed.
   • Correct: He said, "I'll be there."

2. Question marks and exclamation points go inside if they belong to the quoted material, outside if they belong to the larger sentence.

   • Inside: She asked, "Where are you going?"
   • Outside: Did he really say "I quit"?

3. Colons and semicolons always go outside the closing quotation mark.

   • Correct: The memo said "urgent"; no one responded.

Dialogue formatting has its own conventions:

• Start a new paragraph each time the speaker changes.
• Use a comma to connect a quote to its dialogue tag: "I agree," she said.
• If the tag comes first, use a comma before the quote: She said, "I agree."

Titles and Special Uses

Use quotation marks for titles of shorter works: articles, short stories, songs, poems, and TV episode titles. Longer works like books, movies, albums, and TV series get italics instead.

Quotation marks can also signal irony or unusual usage, as in so-called "experts." But use this sparingly. Putting quotation marks around words just for emphasis (Fresh "Organic" Produce) looks unprofessional and can unintentionally suggest the opposite of what you mean.

Apostrophes

Possessive Apostrophes

The rules for showing possession depend on whether the noun is singular, plural, or irregular:

• Singular nouns: Add 's → the dog's bone, the boss's office
• Plural nouns ending in -s: Add only an apostrophe → the dogs' bones, the teachers' lounge
• Irregular plurals (not ending in -s): Add 's → children's toys, women's rights

A few special cases to know:

• Personal pronouns never use apostrophes for possession. The possessive forms are his, hers, its, ours, yours, theirs.
• Indefinite pronouns do take 's → somebody's mistake, everyone's responsibility
• Joint possession (two people own the same thing): apostrophe on the last name only → Tom and Jerry's house
• Separate possession (each person owns their own): apostrophe on each name → Tom's and Jerry's cars

Contractions and Omissions

An apostrophe stands in for missing letters or numbers:

• Contractions: don't (do not), it's (it is/it has), you're (you are), they'd (they would/they had)
• Omitted numbers: the '90s (the 1990s)
• Plurals of letters and symbols: Mind your p's and q's. (The apostrophe prevents misreading here.)

Contractions are fine in informal and most academic writing, but some formal contexts still avoid them. Check your assignment guidelines.

Watch out for these commonly confused pairs:

• it's (it is) vs. its (possessive)
• you're (you are) vs. your (possessive)
• they're (they are) vs. their (possessive) vs. there (location)

The trick: if you can expand the word into two words (it is, you are), you need the apostrophe. If not, you're dealing with the possessive form.

Hyphens

Compound Words and Phrases

Hyphens join words so they read as a single unit. The most common use is compound adjectives before a noun:

• a well-known author (hyphenated before the noun)
• the author is well known (no hyphen after the noun)

This distinction matters because hyphens prevent misreading. Compare small-business owner (someone who owns a small business) with small business owner (a business owner who is small).

Other standard hyphen uses:

• Compound numbers from twenty-one to ninety-nine
• Prefixes like self-, ex-, and all- → self-aware, ex-president, all-inclusive
• Prefixes before proper nouns or numbers → pre-World War II, post-1990

Keep in mind that compound words evolve. Many formerly hyphenated words have become single closed words over time (email, online, website). When in doubt, check a current dictionary.

Special Uses of Hyphens

• Spelled-out fractions: two-thirds, three-quarters
• Compound last names: Sarah Jessica Parker-Broderick
• Hanging hyphens (shared prefixes or suffixes): pre- and post-war
• Letters joined to words: T-shirt, X-ray
• Avoiding awkward letter collisions: co-owner, de-emphasize, re-enter
• Word breaks at line ends: If you must split a word across two lines, break it between syllables with a hyphen. Most word processors handle this automatically.