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"Quotation Marks" 
The world's greatest food critics have said about this dessert:  "Those two scrumptious snacks are simply yummy and are especially noteworthy!"
 
Quotation Marks are used in:  
  
  • Direct Quotations: 
Of People -  
When you write the exact words that someone said, you need to put quotation marks around that person's words:  

 

Phyllis said, "Let's go for lunch."  
"I'm not hungry right now," Roseanne said, "maybe later."  
My cousin stated that he "knew more about baseball than any umpire in the league."  
The school's principal promised "to clean up the drug problem" with the help of parents.

 

CHEF'S NOTES: Notice that the first letter of the first word is always capitalized except when the quote is part of a statement. Also note that the first letter or first word in the second half of a direct quotation is not capitalized. Also, take a look at the punctuation to see where things go.  
  
  • Of Others' Writing - 
Also words that you've seen in print (excerpts from a poem, a story, article, encyclopedia, etc...) that you are re-printing, need to be quoted: 

 

"We may note some similarities and some differences between Hackwork's and Baum's analyses of the events surrounding the protagonist's adventure in the Corinth."  
- Datril's Literary Reference Guide  
  
  • For Noting Literature - 
Put quotation marks around book chapter titles (not the title of the whole book), television episodes, essays, plays of less than 3 acts, poems extracted from other books (not a poem of book-length), song-titles, magazine articles, and other short literary works.  
  
Today's Special - Quotation Marks in Short  
In short , you need to put quotes around:   
song titles, short stories, short poems (unlike Beowulf, an epic poem) articles in a perodical, essay titles, the title of a chapter in a book, magazine articles, and titles of radio or television episodes.   
"War of the Worlds" was a radio episode of Mercury Radio Programming that told a terrifying story about exterrestrials conquering Earth.   
  
  • For Special Words: Words that were coined by another author, or in other words, words that you didn't invent, need to be quoted: 
Johnson defines "axialism" as the rotation of a debate around only one of the smaller topics of a much larger issue.  

 

CHEF'S NOTES:  Mom always said that it's not right to take what doesn't belong to you. The same applies to writing, however, you can borrow what's not yours. Simply quote the material and give credit to the person who wrote it!