Wednesday, January 5, 2011
when good quotation marks go astray
Busy legal writers can be driven to the brink of sanity by quotation marks that face in the wrong direction. On the legal writing professors' listserve, Jan Levine (at Duquesne University), has shared helpful information on what to do about this problem:
"This fall I noticed a large number of strange errors in student papers, where they were writing a quotation-within-a-quotation, and the nested single quotation mark followed immediately after a double quotation mark at the start of a quotation. The single opening quotation mark was oriented in the wrong direction, as if it was placed after the quoted text.
"So I did a little research on why this was happening.
"MS Word, Corel WordPerfect, Pages, and other word processors are set up to do what is called curly quotes, where the quotation marks (single or double) are curved (curly) and go in different directions before and after the language being quoted. The older quotation marks are straight, sometimes being angled (and sometimes not).
"MS Word's 'Smart Quotes' feature, which is turned on by default in Word Options, replaces all quotation marks with curly quotes. But it has one error - the one I kept seeing. There is no way to fix that behavior, other than turning off smart quotes, which will end up with the old style straight quotation marks.
"There are a slew of explanations for curly quotes in MS Word, and how to change from one type to the other. The problem is the algorithm MS Word uses, which ignores this one instance.
"For examples and explanations, click on these links:
http://www.mackb.com/Uwe/Forum.aspx/word/5329/quote-within-quote
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/change-curly-quotes-to-straight-quotes-and-vice-versa-HA010173242.aspx?CTT=1#BM13
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/msoffice/?p=1547
"The only simple workaround I found was on the Typography for Lawyers site (and yes, the book and website are great!): http://www.typographyforlawyers.com/?page_id=1322
"Basically, what he suggests that if you run a search-and-replace within Word, changing single quotation marks to single quotation marks, the direction of the errant single quotation marks will be fixed.
"I took this one step further, and just recorded a simple Word macro to do exactly that procedure. I named it FixCurlyQuotes (you cannot have spaces in MS Word macro names), saved it in my default template, and assigned it to the keystroke combination ctrl-alt-'. If I then hit that keystroke combination, the macro will run and fix all the errors. If you have never recorded a Word macro, it's not hard, and you'll not find one easier to create than this.
"Naturally, Corel WordPerfect does not have this problem."
hat tip: Jan Levine
(spl)
https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/legalwriting/2011/01/when-single-quotation-marks-within-dobules-face-the-wrong-way.html
Comments
Prof. Levine's tips are also helpful to anyone who dictates using Dragon NaturallySpeaking, which formats quotation marks as straight quotes.
Posted by: Hani Sarji | Jan 9, 2011 12:59:30 AM
I didn't see this posted anywhere when I was searching for a solution to changing the direction of quotation marks in Microsoft Word (open versus closed), so I thought I would post the solution I stumbled upon:
Most of the time with smart quotes, the quotation marks will face the right direction. But sometimes, as when ending a sentence with a long dash or em dash (—), the quotes will be facing the wrong direction. To change the direction of your quotes as you type, follow these simple steps: hold down the Control key and press the Quotation Mark key, then let go. This indicates to Word that you want to change the direction of the following quotes from whatever the default is. Then proceed as normal by either pressing the Quotation Mark key by itself for single quotes, or holding down the Shift key and pressing the Quotation Mark key for double quotes. Hope this helps someone. Also, FYI, I have Microsoft Office 2013.
Posted by: dawn | Nov 2, 2014 11:24:16 AM
For those who cannot easily remember random keystroke combinations, there is a setting in Word that has been available since at least Office 2000 (v9). It is found in the AutoFormat options in the Replace section. By default Replace "straight quotes with smart quotes[curly]" is enabled. If you UNcheck that option, OK back out of the selection to save the changes your quotes from then on out should be fine. In versions 2007 and later this is found in the Backstage view (File Tab)>Word Options>Proofing>AutoCorrect Options... button>AutoFormat tab
Hope that helps.
Posted by: Monica Sandler, MCT, CMOM, IC3 | Nov 7, 2014 6:37:57 AM
The ctrl keystroke combo didn't work for me, and I don't like using the straight quotes (I just prefer curly). What I do is go to a blank line in my doc, type a single quote (which should not be in the correct direction) and then copy and paste it into the quote I want it to be in. Rudimentary, but it works.
Posted by: Katye | Dec 2, 2015 8:34:34 AM
Wordpress in a browser on my Windows laptop puts opening (single, curly) quote marks the wrong way round. I just realised! After reading this, I copied and pasted the whole post into Word. The opening quotes were the right way round! I copied and pasted back into Wordpress - still the right way round. Thanks for this, Jan.
Posted by: Chris Hughes | Sep 26, 2020 1:43:21 AM
With my version of Word, if I delete and replace a quotation mark, it will curl in the opposite direction.
Posted by: Otto Stockmeyer | Jan 6, 2011 8:53:59 AM