Introduction to English Punctuation Part 3
QUOTATION MARKS
Use quotation marks [ " " ] to set off material that represents quoted or spoken language; titles of things that do not normally stand by themselves: short stories, poems, and articles. Some writers will set such unspoken language in italics or indent it in order to set it off from other "regular" language. In the United States, writers use single quotation marks [ ' ' ] to enclose quoted material (or the titles of poems, stories, articles) within other quoted material.
PARENTHESES
Use parentheses [ ( ) ] to include material that you want to de-emphasize or does not fit into the flow of your text but you want to include it. Parentheses tend to de-emphasize text whereas dashes tend to make material seem even more important.
SLASHES
Many writers use the slash to indicate "or" and "and" to avoid gender he/she/plurals problems. These formats are not acceptable in formal business or academic writing. Use the forward slash [ / ] for WWW addresses and the backward slash [ \ ] to indicate file locations on computer drives.
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