: Re: The difference between dialogue marks Most authors use dialogue in writing, especially when writing fiction. Now, if I remember my first grade primary school correctly, dialogue can be directly

@Bryan361

Vote Up Vote Down

The convention in English is to use double quotes, or occasionally, single quotes. Anything else if jarring and confusing. I don't know what first grade teacher said that hyphens or angle brackets are a routine way to identify quotes. If this was a teacher of the English language, he was just what I like to call "wrong".

You might use some other notation for special cases. Like if you're writing a science fiction novel and you need some way to set off the aliens' non-verbal communication or the telephathic links or some such.

You can, of course, always break the conventions. But have a reason to do it, not just because you prefer some alternate convention. As for any writing rule, if the rule gets in the way of the story, sure, break it. But don't break rules just because you feel like it.

But for normal human speech, use quotes. Anything else, readers will have to figure out that you're using this other symbol instead of quotes for no apparent reason, and it will be continually jarring.

(0)

Login to post a comment!