Single or double quote marks? Copy

Click on the Play button to hear a message from Anne.

There are two options for quotation marks:

• Single quote
• Double quote

As to which you use, this is a style issue.

There’s no hard and fast grammatical rule for you to follow.

You decide … or the publisher decides. If it’s your decision, these are my best practice suggestions.

• Single quotes are less dotty on the page, so use them in preference to double quotes.
• If, anywhere in your manuscript you have used single quotes to highlight a special term, use double quotes for your dialogue.
• Reword your text to avoid quotes within quotes. It’s a level of complexity not needed by your reader.