Friday, June 23, 2017

punctuation - The usage of quotation marks



I'm discussing and comparing two books and I want to know if I'm using quotation marks correctly:




Both books are known for being existential and the reader is bombarded with questions throughout the books. ‘Whose fault is this? Who did this? Why did it happen this way? Did it even happen this way?’





I'm having a lot of doubts over the punctuation in this small piece of text:




  • Should there be a colon after throughout the books?


  • Should there be individual quotation marks for every question, or is this right?


  • If every question must have individual quotation marks, how would you correctly separate the questions? Using dots after the right quotation mark? Using commas?




EDIT: I must write the final version using a pen and paper.


Answer




I see no absolute need for a colon, and if the questions are separate questions, then putting each in its own quotation marks will make this clear. I suggest, therefore:




Both books are known for being existential, and the reader is bombarded
with questions throughout the books. ‘Whose fault is this?’ Who did
this?’ ‘Why did it happen this way?’ ‘Did it even happen this way?’



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