Rules for writers, Tenth edition - Diana Hacker, Nancy Sommers 2021

Avoid common misuses of quotation marks
Quotation marks
Punctuation

Do not use quotation marks to draw attention to familiar slang, to disown trite expressions, or to justify an attempt at humor.

EXERCISE 38-1

Add or delete quotation marks as needed and make any other necessary changes in punctuation in the following sentences. If a sentence is correct, write “correct” after it. Answers appear in the back of the book.

a. As for the advertisement “Sailors have more fun”, if you consider chipping paint and swabbing decks fun, then you will have plenty of it.

b. Even after forty minutes of discussion, our class could not agree on an interpretation of Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken.”

c. After winning the lottery, Juanita said that “she would give half the money to charity.”

d. After the movie, Vicki said, “The reviewer called this flick “trash of the first order.” I guess you can’t believe everything you read.”

e. “Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing,” said Phyllis Diller, “is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing.”

EXERCISE 38-2

Add or delete quotation marks as needed and make any other necessary changes in punctuation in the following passage. Citations should conform to MLA style (see 55).

In her book “The World Has Curves,” Julia Savacool studies global beauty standards. The author describes an article she wrote for Marie Claire titled Women’s Bodies, Then and Now about “the ways in which women’s body shapes have changed around the world” over two centuries (ix). In her book, Savacool goes deeper into the topic by focusing on the idea of globalization. “Distinctions between cultures are being blurred, she writes, so that geographical boundaries no longer determine a population’s music tastes, movie idols, and gastronomic preferences.” (x) Savacool questions whether this is also true of bodies. “Does the same principle apply to women’s appearances”, she asks (x)?

Savacool also questions whether such beauty standards are realistic or healthy. She explains:

“In America, the ideal body for women is increasingly longer and leaner than seems humanly possible — and indeed, is frequently not humanly possible, a realization that has given rise to a booming industry of cosmetic procedures, products, and diet and fitness plans. The exception, or perhaps contradiction, to the skinny-is-beautiful trend in America is our fixation on breasts, the only acceptable fat on an otherwise lean body.” (xi)

In some ways, this image is beginning to change — but perhaps not as quickly as it could. Savacool argues that, “Never before has the “perfect” body been at such odds with our true size. (xii)”

(Source of quotations: Julia Savacool, The World Has Curves)