Playlist: Surrounding Information: Punctuation that Comes in Pairs
Using a talking gingerbread man and an infomercial for punctuation marks, this program demystifies the art of working with quotation marks, parentheses, and brackets. Both the basics and the finer points are covered, including when to use double quotation marks and when to use singles, the difference between quoting and paraphrasing, and how quotation marks, parentheses, and brackets interact with other forms of punctuation. (29 minutes)
Parentheses insert a piece of information in a sentence that is not directly connected to the sentence's main point. The parenthetical expression takes many grammatical forms.
Parenthetical expressions have their own punctuation rules to follow depending upon the content within the parentheses.
Quotation marks are used to frame direct quotations and to punctuate titles of creative works such as poems. They set off words that are being defined, and they denote sarcastic remarks.
Commas and periods go inside end quotation marks. Colons, semicolons, and dashes always follow end quotation marks.
When a question mark or exclamation mark belongs to the quote, it goes inside the quotation mark. If it belongs to the sentence itself, it goes outside the quotation mark.
A writer uses brackets to insert editorial comment into a quoted passage. Rules that apply to parentheses also apply to brackets.