Grammar: Quotation Marks

Why are there rules of grammar? It's not to make people feel stupid, it's not to give some people a sense of superiority, it's a road map that facilitates communication. There's nothing wrong with jargon, colloquialisms, slang and the like, but if you're communicating to a broad, mixed audience, there has to be a common language if our words are to be understood.

One of the most commonly misused parts of standard American English is the quotation mark. A certain national elected official misuses them on a regular basis, here are a few guidelines for using quotation marks:

1. They are used when quoting someone. Well, that seems obvious! A quote is not a summary or a paraphrase, it is repeating exactly what was said or written. There are rules for inserting clarifying words within a quote which I won't get into, but if you change the wording, it's not a quote and doesn't take equation marks. 
2. Quotation marks can indicate sarcasm or irony. For example: Bart was out with his "girlfriend" last night on O Street. Putting "girlfriend" in quotes tells us that we should doubt whether this person was actually Bart's girlfriend. Another example is: Our "leader", Mayor Smith, is on the ballot again this year. The use of quotation marks here clearly says that Mayor Smith is anything but a leader. 
3. When you are writing about a specific word, that word can be enclosed in quotes, like the second use of the word "best" in the previous example (and the use of the same word in this example)
4. In a book, the chapters can be identified using quotes while the book title is italicized; similarly, a story in a newspaper should be in quotes while the name of the newspaper is italicized. Use quotes when what is being described is a part of something larger. 
5. They are not used for emphasis. Underlining, bolding, italicizing, highlighting are all ways to emphasize a word or a phrase. Our football team is the "best" in the state. This sentence does not emphasize the word "best", in fact it indicates that the writer is using the word sarcastically. 

#5 is by far the most egregious misuse of quotation marks. Usually it's fairly obvious from the context what the writer is trying to say, but sometimes it muddies the waters and causes confusion.