Italics and Quotation Marks: FORMATIVE
Learning Target 1-4 1
Rule 1: Use underlining (italics) for titles of books, plays, films, periodicals, works of art, long musical
compositions, television programs, book length poems, ships, and so on.
Rule 2: Use underlining (italics) for words, letters, and figures referred to as such and for foreign words.
Rule 3: Use quotation marks to enclose a direct quotation – a person’s exact words.
Rule 4: A direct quotation begins with a capital letter.
Rule 5: When a quoted sentence is divided into two parts by an interrupting expression such as he said or
Mother asked, the second part begins with a small (lower case) letter.
Rule 6: A direct quotation is set off from the rest of the sentence by commas or by a question mark or an
exclamation point.
Rule 7: Other marks of punctuation when used with quotation marks are placed according to the following
rules:

Rule 7A: Commas and periods are always placed inside closing quotation marks.

Rule 7B: Colons and semi-colons are always placed outside closing quotation marks.

Rule 7C: Question marks and exclamation points are placed inside the closing quotation
marks if the quotation is a question or an exclamation; otherwise they are placed outside.
Rule 8: When you write dialogue (a conversation), begin a new paragraph every time the speaker changes.
Rule 9: When a quoted passage consists of more than one paragraph, put quotation marks at the beginning
of each paragraph and at the end of the entire passage. Do not put quotation marks after any paragraph but
the last.
Rule 10: Use single quotation marks to enclose a quotation within a quotation.
Rule 11: Use quotation marks to enclose titles of short works such as articles, short stories, essays, poems,
songs, and individual episodes of television shows; and of chapters and other parts of books.
DIRECTIONS:
Correctly insert italics(underlining) as necessary. Show needed quotation marks by writing the portion of the
sentence needing quotation marks on the line that follows.
EXAMPLE:
Horace Greeley founded the Tribune, a successful and influential New York newspaper; in it he published his
famous antislavery essay The Prayer of Twenty Millions.
Horace Greeley founded the Tribune, a successful and influential New York newspaper; in it he published his
famous antislavery essay The Prayer of Twenty Millions. ____ “The Prayer of Twenty Millions.”_______________
1
RCSHS – ENG IIA - KMH
taken from Warriner’s English Composition and Grammar, Third Course,
Exercise Review B, pg. 650-651.
Italics and Quotation Marks: FORMATIVE
Learning Target 1-4 1
1.
The Bay Area Youth Theater is presenting Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun.
______________________________________________________________________________
2. Hilda announced that she is going to sing Some Enchanted Evening from the musical South
Pacific. _______________________________________________________________________
3. I have tickets to the opera Carmen, said Karen, and I would like you to be my guest.
______________________________________________________________________________
4. The Spanish word for goodbye is adiós; the Swahili word is kwaheri.
______________________________________________________________________________
5. My favorite story by Arthur Conan Doyle is The Adventure of the Dying Detective, which is
included in the anthology The Complete Sherlock Holmes, a book of his stories.
______________________________________________________________________________
6. Mrs. Louden said, I like your report on Ernest Hemingway. Remember, however, that Ernest is
spelled without an a. ____________________________________________________________
7. In her review of The King and I, the drama critic for the Los Angeles Times commented, This
production is an excellent revival of a ply that never seems to wear thin.
______________________________________________________________________________
8. The paper I wrote on Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar is titles The Noblest Roman.
______________________________________________________________________________
9. Mrs. Howard asked, In Julius Caesar, who said, This is the noblest Roman of them all? Which
Roman was being described? ______________________________________________________
10. Have you read Hannah Armstrong, one of the poems in the Spoon River Anthology, a book by
Edgar Lee Masters? ______________________________________________________________
2
RCSHS – ENG IIA - KMH
taken from Warriner’s English Composition and Grammar, Third Course,
Exercise Review B, pg. 650-651.
Italics and Quotation Marks: FORMATIVE
Learning Target 1-4 1
3
RCSHS – ENG IIA - KMH
taken from Warriner’s English Composition and Grammar, Third Course,
Exercise Review B, pg. 650-651.