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King County Editorial Style Manual - Listings - Q

King County Editorial Style Manual - Listings - Q

quarter. Lowercase fall, winter, spring and summer when referring to academic quarters and first, second, third and fourth quarters when referring to fiscal periods. Don't separate the quarter and the year with a comma: She plans to graduate at the end of fall quarter 2001. The report is scheduled to come out in spring quarter 2001.

question mark (?). Direct questions always take question marks: Who is going with you? Did he ask you if you were going? Indirect questions never take question marks: He would like to know who's going with you. For multiple questions, either use a single question mark at the end of the complete sentence: Did she plan the project, manage the budget and supervise the staff? Or emphasize each element by breaking up the sentence: Did she plan the project? Manage the budget? Supervise the staff?

Use a question mark and not a comma when supplying attribution for a quotation: "Who is going?" she asked. The question mark may go inside or outside quotation marks depending on the meaning: Who wrote "Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey"? She asked, "How long will it take?" Also, use a single question mark, inside the quotation mark, in sentences like this: Did you hear him say, "Who wrote all the reports?" See punctuation.

Use only one space after a question mark at the end of a sentence.

questionnaire. Commonly misspelled.

queue, queuing. Drop the second e when adding -ing.

quotation marks (" "). Put quotation marks around direct quotations: "No comment," he said. Smith said, "Report to work on time." If a full paragraph of quoted material precedes another paragraph that continues the quotation, do not put quotation marks after the first paragraph. But do put quotation marks before the second paragraph.

Put quotation marks around words used ironically or unfamiliar terms used on first reference: The "tycoon" turned out to be a pauper. But avoid overusing single words in quotation marks.

Avoid using quotation marks to highlight words or phrases; save them for enclosing quotations and identifying certain composition titles. To highlight terms, use boldfacing, italics, color, font size or font type.

Don't put the words of one person into the mouths of many: Witnesses at the accident said there was "a tremendous bang, and then all hell broke loose."

Quotations within quotations: Use single quotation marks for passages contained within a direct quotation ("She said, 'Ouch!'").

Punctuation: The period and comma always go inside the quotation marks. The dash, question mark and exclamation point go inside the quotation marks when they apply to onlythe quoted matter. Colons and semicolons go outside quotation marks. Also see punctuation, question mark above.

In Microsoft Word, you can set options that will automatically put punctuation inside quotation marks:
Click Tools on the Word toolbar.
Choose Options in the drop-down list.
Choose the Spelling & Grammar in the drop-down list.
Under Grammar, mark Check grammar as you type
Press the Settings button under Grammar.
Choose inside in the drop-down list next to Punctuation required with quotes.
Press OK.

In headlines, use single quotation marks: Man cries 'Fire!' in theater, causes panic

See attribution, composition titles, nickname.

quotation, quote. Quotation is the preferred noun form. Use quote as a verb: Don't quote me on this. He recited a quotation from Hamlet.

quotations. Introduce full-sentence quotations with commas. Introduce multiple-sentence quotations with colons. When using partial quotations and the titles of books, movies and other publications, punctuate as if the quotation marks weren't there. See attribution, colon, comma, composition titles. and quotation marks above.

Spell out (don't abbreviate) all words and phrases in direct quotations if that's they way they were expressed: "We were in Taos, New Mexico, on January 28." Follow standard style guidelines for capitalization, punctuation and spelling when quoting a speaker. See dates, state names.

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