[d.] Do not use parenthesis marks to cancel a word or passage. Draw a horizontal line through whatever is to be omitted.
[e.] Brackets are used to insert explanatory matter in a quotation which one gives from another writer. Explanatory matter inserted by the original writer is enclosed within parenthesis marks.
- Right: "Bunyan's masterpiece (The Pilgrim's Progress)," declared the lecturer, "is out of harmony with the spirit of the age that produced it [the age of the Restoration]." (Here the explanatory words the age of the Restoration are inserted by the person who is quoting the lecturer.)
Exercise:
- The supremacy of the horse-drawn vehicle is unless a miracle happens now gone forever.
- My count shows (41) forty-one bales of cotton in the mill yard.
- [Insert the Marne as your explanation]: "It was this battle," said the lecturer, "that made the name of Joffre immortal."
- [Insert Florida as the explanation of the person you are quoting]: "In that state oranges are plentiful."
- It was the opinion of Bailey and events proved him right that the government must assume control of the railroads.
[Quotation Marks]
[96a.] Quotation marks should be used to enclose a direct, but not an indirect, quotation.
- Right: "I am thirsty," he said.
- Wrong: He said "that he was thirsty."
- Right: He said that he was thirsty.
[b.] A quotation of several paragraphs should have quotation marks at the beginning of each paragraph and at the end of the last paragraph.
[c.] In narrative each separate speech, however short, should be enclosed within quotation marks; but a single speech of several sentences should have only one set of quotation marks.