The Question Marks
This is used for all direct questions:
e.g. What are you doing: You will come, won't you? but not for reported questions: e.g. I wonder what he is doing. Ask him who did it.
(Don't forget the question mark at the end of a long question.)
Exclamation Mark
(a) Use an exclamation point at the end of an emphatic declaration, interjection, or command.
e.g. "No!" he yelled. "Do it now!"
(b) An exclamation mark may be used to close questions that are meant to convey extreme emotion, as in
e.g. What on earth are you doing! Stop!
(c) An exclamation mark can be inserted within in parentheses to emphasize a word with in a sentence.
e.g. We have some really (!) low-priced rugs on sale this week.
Note that there is no space between the last letter of the word so emphasized and the parentheses. This device should be used rarely, if ever, in formal text.
(d) An exclamation mark will often accompany mimetically produced sounds, as in
e.g. "All might long, the dogs woof! in my neighbor's yard" and the "The bear went Ger! And I went left."
(e) If an exclamation mark is part of an italicized or underlined title, make sure that the exclamation mark is also italicized or underlined:
e.g. My favorite book is Oh, the Places You'll Go!
(Do not add a period after such a sentence that ends with the title's exclamation mark. The exclamation mark will also suffice to end the sentence.) If the exclamation mark is not part of a sentence-ending title, don't italicize the exclamation mark:
e.g. I've asked you not to sing la Marseillaise!
In academic prose, an exclamation point is used rarely, if at all, and in newspaper wiring the exclamation point is virtually nonexistent.
Quotation Marks
(a) When the subject and verb start the sentence, they are followed by a comma, and the first word spoken has a capital letter:
e.g. They said, "We are going away."
(b) When quoting someone's words or from a book:
e.g. "To be, or not to be" begins a famous speech from Hamlet.
Take care, when quoting from a book/play/poem, that your own sentence leads naturally into the quotation.
(c) Further, punctuation around quoted speech or phrases depends on how it fits into the rest of your text. If a quoted word or phrase fits into the flow of your sentence without a break or pause, then a comma may not be necessary:
e.g. The phrase "lovely, dark and deep" begins to suggest ominous overtones.
(d) If the quoted speech follows an independent clause yet could be part of the same sentence, use a colon to set off the quoted language:
e.g. My mother's favorite quote was from Shakespeare: "This above all, to thin own self be true."
(e) Around titles of short stories
e.g. I read the story "White Knight at the Battle field" to him already.
(f) Around titles of poems
e.g. Your poem "The Wave" was certainly very touching.
(g) Around titles of songs
e.g. My favorite song is "The Yellow Submarine.
(h) Around titles of articles
e.g. That article "Why You Should Bring Your Own Lunch" was about unhealthy lunches.
(i) Around titles of chapters
e.g. The chapter "The Encounter with the Teacher" was quite funny.
(j) Use single quotation marks (only one quotation mark) around a quote that is in another quote.
"Ms. Redwood, the article you gave us, "Save the Environment, I was very interesting to ready," I said.
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