Quotation marks are just as much “standard usage” as italics for titles of works, especially because until relatively recently, most people didn’t have access to italics on their typewriters, and other pre-Macintosh technology.
Prior to the 1990s, when modern desktop publishing tools became widely adopted in the newspaper industry, there was almost no italicization available to most American newspapers. Even now the Associated Press Stylebook calls for quotation marks rather than italics, even for “standalone works.”
I typically italicize when I’m doing print layout myself. When I’m submitting work for someone else to edit/lay out, I use quotes. I’ve had too many editors and designers lose my bold/italics when they import or copy text. This is especially true if you write for small-circulation newspapers or indy publishers.
In the specific example above, I like using the quotes because it sets the question mark apart a bit more. You don’t always know what font your work will end up in–especially on a Web-based message board!–and the difference between italic and Roman fonts is often subtle. When computer software just slants the font instead of using true italics, the difference is even more subtle and easy to miss.
You underline when using a typewriter. That was the sign for the typesetter to italicize back in the ancient days before Microsoft.
Can you provide a cite for the AP Stylebook? I can’t access it, and every source I can find teaches the convention of italics for book titles. This is pretty standard stuff and not a matter of style, I believe. This site seems to owe allegiance to the AP Stylebook:
I agree that certain fonts make the italics a bit subtle. Have you considered underlining instead as a way of not losing the italics? Do your editors replace quotations with italics when it’s a book title, or is it printed as submitted?
The problem is when text is transfered from one software application to another. If italics are lost, then bold and underlining will be lost, too.
I write for a pretty wide variety of publications. I use italics for most of them. Over time, I learn which ones to format and which ones to keep in plain text.
In your previous message, you’re not really crediting Microsoft with computerized typesetting (or even the consumerization of computerized typesetting), are you?
No. I was just pointing out that the standard convention when one didn’t have the ability to italicize (which virtually everyone has now) was to underline. If you wrote a novel, for example, you’d underline what should be italicized. The typesetter would replace one with the other.
You’d be wrong. It’s in the Stylebook, next to all the other style rules. It says to use quotes in the text, in the same place it says to use “judgment” instead of “judgement.” The original reason behind it might be a technical limitation, but the fact remains that many, if not most, newspapers, as a matter of style use quotation marks for titles of books.
From “Words into Type” (3rd ed.), p. 136:
p. 220:
Note that it says generally and usually. That means that there are other options. It does not say that it is incorrect to use any other form.
p. 40:
Note, the “in some fields.” That indicates that this is a matter of style, dependent upon the context. Words into Type is a style guide usually used for book publishing and scholarly works. It doesn’t tell you the style for letters, memoranda, handwritten notes, and other situations. In the most formal uses, yes, your publisher is probably going to put book titles in italics, but to say that to use quotation marks instead is wrong, regardless of context, is plain ludicrous.
Hmmm. I’m seeing Acsenray’s point, but still holding to the customary stylistic usage. How’s this:
If possible, when writing for anything other than a newspaper or other periodical using the AP Stylesheet, follow the “standalone” rules, which are the customary “proper” usage for most publishing and acadamic usage.
If writing for a newspaper or other periodical with the hope that the AP will pick up your story or where there is clear indication that the AP Stylesheet is what is desirable, use the gawdawful quotes around all titles system, because that’s what it calls for.
It’s not a major solecism to use the “wrong” system, but good style dictates using the proper format for what you’re writing for.
You cover all but one situation there, Polycarp. Even in today’s world of interchange standards, I write for a few publications that only accept articles as plain text in the body of the email–no formatted attachments (not even RTF!). In those cases, you have to either use quotes or set the titles apart using preceding and following underscores like this (which I personally think looks awful).
acsenray, I think you’re picking nits. The AP Stylebook cite notes that, “Type face cannot be sent through AP computers.” Feel free to consider this an issue of personal style and an enthusiastic endorsement of the aesthetic benefits of quotation marks.
BTW, the are lots of wonderful writers who dispense with all kinds of well-established rules of grammar and punctuation as a matter of style. That doesn’t turn these departures into standard usage.
You stated that, “Quotation marks are just as much ‘standard usage’ as italics,” and your last cites don’t support this. If italics are “generally” or “usually” used for book titles, then that’s a fair approximation of standard usage.
No, really, it’s not. I have no particular preference for quotation marks for titles. However, I have read a lot of stuff in my 36 years, including a wide range of printed matter – books, encyclopedias, magazines, newspapers, specialty periodicals – as well as business letters, advertisements, personal letters, historical documents, and all manner of communication, typed and handwritten, and while this might count for nothing more than anecdote, it seems to me utterly ridiculous to conclude that quotation marks for titles is not just as standard as italics. They are used everywhere, and while the most formal style guides might tend toward using italics (and I see nothing wrong with that – it’s my own preference), none of them say that using quotation marks is wrong, in any circumstance.
And the AP Stylebook cite does not note that typeface cannot be sent through AP computers. The Stylebook entry on composition titles only notes that quotation marks are to be used. That’s the STYLE RULE. In a separate entry for “italics,” is where you find the technical limitation. It is not explicitly connected to the rule for titles. Indeed, it says nothing about whether italics are to be used or when.
Can we get an editor in here? Ukulele Ike? Lissener? Jonathan Chance? Do you guys do vanity searches? From years of reading and writing, I think acsenray is out to lunch on anything but, obviously, what AP-member newspapers expect. But I don’t have proof of that. Somebody with a good non-journalism style guide giving a cite would be appreciated.
Okay, fine, take a poll on whether I’m out to lunch, but let me just clarify what it is I’m supposed to be out to lunch on. This is my claim:
Whether italics or quotation marks are used for composition titles (even of “standalone works”) is a matter of style and one should follow the style rule of the publication one is writing for. If there is no applicable style rule, then the use of either quotation marks or italics is common and equally valid; neither usage can be fairly labelled as “wrong” outside the context of an applicable style rule.
FWIW, I think you’ve pegged it precisely, acsenray.
I’m not sure what you expect to prove by getting in an editor, Polycarp. Any editor I’ve every worked with (dozens of them) will simply hand you their publication’s official style guide and tell you to follow it.
I have no argument with that whatsoever. It was my apparently wrong reading of your statement as an assertion that the AP Style Guide was the proper format that raised my hackles. My distinct impression is that in academic and book-publishing usage, what I asserted in a much earlier post was generally considered proper style; I stand educated on proper newspaper/journalistic style by what you posted.
I will absolutely allow for the possibility that I’ll be proven wrong, but my position is that this thread (including cites you provided) generally supports the following:
Italics are generally used for book titles–i.e., it is standard usage. There are certain media where use of italics is not possible (i.e., AP submissions where the organization’s computer systems cannot accommodate the use of italics). Within the confines of those media an alternative (quotation marks) is a practical necessity.