Sunday, January 5th, 2020
Blog #9 of my learning from #TheChicagoManualOfStyle.
Quotations
Guidelines: For Inline or block quotes, give credit to the source (covered in Chapter 14) with needed written permissions for multi-line references. Too many quotations may be distracting. So consider paraphrasing.
But if you quote, take great pains to be verbatim. Certain changes, however, are tolerated like punctuations, the original notes of reference, obvious typographic errors, font, appearance, and indentations, etc.
Appearance: Run-In: This term means inside the same line as the surrounding text. Run-ins are quotes “like this for short ones.” Phrase fragmentary quotations “in such a way that the words fit into the larger sentence logically” as described in TCMOS, Chapter 13. You must also integrate tense and pronouns wisely (quote a subset versus the entire) to keep the integrity of the sentence intact. You are encouraged to use [to put in brackets the original wording of the changed text] next to the word altered.
For larger quotes (say, over a hundred words), use block quotations, starting on a new line with a left indent. Salutations, signatures would make block quotations.
Punctuation starting a quotation:
Use of a comma in the examples below works:
Isabella said, “Never!”
Jason wrote, “My wife said never…”
Both the following dialogues are correct but note the difference in capitalization and punctuation.
“I don’t even know her name,” she whispered.
“I don’t even know,” she whispered, “her name.”
The h of “her” is lowercase because the parts of dialogue before and after the tag are subordinate. If they weren’t, capitalize the h.
But don’t use a comma if you were introducing a quotation “Long live opera!” in a sentence. A similar rule applies to dialogues written as statements. You can also introduce a quotation with a colon: “I have miles to go before I sleep.” Note the capitalized I.
For a block quotation that follow a period, indent the whole section.
The paragraph following the block quotation assumes normal indentation unless it’s a continuation of the clause that introduced it.
Capitalization
When introducing a quotation in the middle such that it “forms a syntactical part of the sentence,” begin it with a lowercase letter unless it forms a remote relation with the sentence: “The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, but I have promises to keep.” The guiding principle is that if you can use the quote in a sentence tied to the overall structure, whether run-in or block quotation, the first letter is lowercase, else capitalized.
Poetry
Poetry extracts are center-aligned on a separate paragraph, but if multiple stanzas of a long poem exist, they are best uniformly aligned left. Half to a full line appears between stanzas. Runover lines in poetry extracts are indented one em from the line above.
Quotation Marks
- Use single quotes within double-quotes.
- Don’t enclose block quotations in double-quotes unless quotes appear in the quoted text.
- When quoting multiple paragraphs, use blocks (described above without quotes and on its own para).
- My book Letters from the Queen contains a protagonist and letters, and according to TCMOS, I must use block quotations and indent them on all lines, including salutation and signature.
- Skip quotes for epigraphs.
- When the opening letter of a paragraph is a decorative character, skip the starting quote.
Dialogues and Conversations
- Use a new line to show a change in speaker
- (Not in TCMOS) Instead of tags like he said, she said, use an action beat instead. She threw the pan across the room.
- She could never say no => Don’t enclose single words like yes, no, never, where, why, and how in quotes. But the following works. “No!” she screamed. The deciding factor is if the words integrate semantically in the rest of the sentence.
- Ellipsis show faltering speech. Coming up.
- TCMOS states that you may or may not use double quotes for thoughts or unspoken words or imagination. In close-third-person pov, the narration comes from the pov/protagonist. Therefore, no need to outline the thoughts unless for emphasis.
- Spell out numerals unless you have multiple, where spelling some and not the others would make the text more readable.
Ellipses
Three spaced dots that signal faltering speech, a receding voice is called the ellipses. The example below from my WIP:
“I doubt it, and besides . . .” I glanced around, taking a big lump of air. Wealthy people dined here. Not me.
Note that the spaces exist between the periods. Separate the surrounding text from the ellipsis by a space, always. But if punctuation appears at the end of the ellipsis, omit the space. Here’s the example:
“No . . . No, my darling . . .”
When NOT to use the ellipses:
- Before the first word of a quotation.
- After the last word of a quotation.
Variations:
Add a period before an ellipsis to signal the omission of the end of the sentence. Note, in this case, add no space between the last character and the first period as the normal ellipses.
I am a sentence cut. . . . There are other examples in TCMOS.
Punctuation following ellipses includes no space but does before it. Example: “I am at a loss, . . .”
- Use the four periods at the end of the line to signal the omission of multiple paragraphs.
- In poetry, use a line of periods to show omission.
My Takeaway
The chapter ends with rules around citation (which I will write more in Chapter 14), and how to write about illegible content or changed content for clarification. And as has been with all my blogs, I am content to cover the meat of this chapter, aware of everything I left out.
Of all the things, I learned about the spacing of ellipses to denote different scenarios, and I am signing off educated on how to format the Letters from the Queen.
