: When do I use single quotation marks when I am typing or writing? I'm new to this website so I need help. A couple punctuation marks confuse me. It's hard for me to remember stuff.

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This is a style issue, similar to other punctuation marks. As such, use of a reputable style guide is highly recommended. In the US, The Chicago Manual of Style has become the dominant source, but there are others. Even in Chicago, certain contested recommendations have changed from edition to edition {Jesus's followers (current) versus Jesus' followers}.

By Chicago standards, in dialogue, single quotes are only ever used for dialogue within dialogue, and indirect quotations occur as running test.

Paul said, "Jean told me to clean up my act." vs.
Paul said, "Jean told me, 'Clean up your act!'"

I was watching TV, and Seinfeld said to George, "Elaine is driving me crazy. She even told me she was trying to."

vs.

Last night I was talking to my buddy, and I said something like, "Seinfeld said to George, 'Elaine is driving me crazy!'" I don't know why I told that story. [first person]

vs.

Joey explained to his mom he was up late watching TV because he liked the Seinfeld episode where Seinfeld tells Georgw that Elaine is driving him crazy. [third person]

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So double quotes are used to denote dialog or actual quotes from other sources (things they said word for word and you are just repeating.). Single quotes are normally used for quotes within dialog or quotes within quotes. Consider the following:

A teenage girl walked past on her phone. "And Kelly was like, 'No way!'" she said. "And I was like, 'Way!'"

Witnesses said the man was "acting crazy" by saying, "This is all the Muppet's doing.'"

As a final note of dialog, when a reporter is speaking the quotation, it will normally be given as followed:

The tv reporter continued, "A witness said the man was, quote, 'acting crazy' and 'This is all the Muppet's doing.'"

Here, the mentioning of quoting is used to denote the following statement is a direct statement from another source. Hope this helps.

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