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Introducing quoted material

After a word group introducing a quotation, the context will determine whether a colon, a comma, or no punctuation is appropriate.

Formal introduction

Use a colon after a formal introduction—a full independent clause, not just an expression such as he said or she remarked.

Example sentence: Morrow views personal ads in the classifieds as an art form: “The personal ad is like a haiku of self-celebration, a brief solo played on one's own horn.”

Expression such as he said

If a quotation is introduced with an expression such as he said or she remarked—or if it is followed by such an expression—use a comma.

Example sentence: About New England's weather, Mark Twain once declared, “In the spring I have counted one hundred and thirty-six different kinds of weather inside of four and twenty hours” (55).

Example sentence: “You can be a little ungrammatical if you come from the right part of the country,” writes Robert Frost.

Blended quotation

When a quotation is blended into your own sentence, either a comma or no punctuation is appropriate, depending on the way the quotation fits into your sentence structure.

Example sentence: The future champion could, as he put it, “float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.”

Example sentence: Charles Hudson noted that the prisoners escaped “by squeezing through a tiny window eighteen feet above the floor of their cell.”

Quoted material at the beginning of a sentence

If a quotation appears at the beginning of a sentence, set it off with a comma unless the quotation ends with a question mark or an exclamation point.

Example sentence: “I've always thought of myself as a reporter,” claimed American poet Gwendolyn Brooks (162).

Example sentence: “What is it?” I asked, bracing myself.

Quoted material interrupted by commentary

If a quoted sentence is interrupted by explanatory words, use commas to set off the explanatory words.

Example sentence: “With regard to air travel,” Stephen Ambrose notes, “Jefferson was a full century ahead of the curve” (53).

If two successive quoted sentences from the same source are interrupted by explanatory words, use a comma before the explanatory words and a period after them.

Example sentence: “Everyone agrees journalists must tell the truth,” Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel write. “Yet people are befuddled about what 'the truth' means” (37).

Exercise: Quotation marks 1

Exercise: Quotation marks 2