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I don't come across this particular problem very often, but everyonce and a while I come across a journal article that contains sparse/double quotes around a particular word. In particular this is problematic when the quotes are in place around the first or last word because some reference styles enclose titles of journal papers or one level of series or book or chapter in “”.

Three observations:

  1. It makes no sense to me to include back to back open quotes: ""XYZ" the remainder of the title"
  2. Most reference managing software (some written by people with extensive knowledge of bibliographic rules) will strip off leading or even embedded quotations.
  3. Medline’s and web of science’s citation databases show many titles I have had issues with, without the quotations.

Any suggestions on the best way to handle this in general.

Updates:

  • I do not believe this is a duplicate of How are embedded quotations used? because my question is very specific to a bibliography. I'm not asking about paragraph embedded references, this is specific to how referencing styles tolerate changes to titles or formatting requirements which were deliberately written with specific punctuation or rule set, respectively. To me, this indicates the flexibility to altering the rules or the citation, may not be transferable and needs an explicit justification or rule.
EngBIRD
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    The MLA (and APA) approach is the same as for the nesting of quotations generally: alternate single and double quotation marks as you nest layers. If the title contains double quotation marks, and you need to enclose the whole title in double quotation marks to cite it, change the double quotation marks in the original title to single ones, and put double ones around the whole thing. Note that neither style encloses book titles in quotation marks, though--those are italicized instead. – Brian Donovan Nov 04 '17 at 16:52
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    To handle other people’s misuse of punctuation, generally live with it, or write to them with your suggestions. Doing it yourself could be slightly tricky. Ideally, the first level of quotation would be single, as ‘XYZ’ and the next double, as “ ‘XYZ’ the remainder of the title”. Even if that example were clear, most people normally use double quotes, which means they will need “XYZ” and then ‘“XYZ” the remainder of the title’. EngBIRD , did you notice that other than Three observations:, all of your phrases contain problems at least as large as what you’re worrying about? – Robbie Goodwin Nov 05 '17 at 21:08
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    What are "sparse quotes"? – Lawrence Apr 04 '18 at 03:14

1 Answers1

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I agree that a pair of double quotes together is wrong. I wish you would have written a full sentence but I will give an example of my preferred usage: The teacher said, "Please don't use the word 'ain't'!"

dwight
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    Yes and ain't ain't a dreadful example? Doesn't its apostrophe clash with the quotation marks in just the way that people asking that Question won't get?? – Robbie Goodwin Nov 05 '17 at 20:51