If a direct speech or a quote is interrupted, then the individual parts are placed in quotation marks:
«We should go home,» she said. «It’s going to rain soon.»
In this case, the comma is placed after the closing quotation mark, since the literal speech is interrupted here. In the case of such an interruption, the period then belongs to the higher-level sentence. If, on the other hand, direct speech is not interrupted, the punctuation mark (here the period) comes before the closing quotation mark.
Quotation marks in quotations
For quotations, between direct quote and indirect quote be distinguished. With a direct quote, a text passage is quoted one-to-one, which means that the text is adopted in exactly the same way. The indirect quote quotes by reproducing the content of the text in your own words. This is also called paraphrasing. An indirect quote is made without quotation marks.
Direct quotes are Verbatim passages from factual texts and reproduce the content of scientific works.
In the case of a direct quotation, there are quotation marks before and after the respective literal statement:
A romance novel is a novel «whose central theme is love» (Wilpert, 2001, p. 465).
In addition, the source must be indicated from which the quotation originates. This is then in brackets and contains the name of the author, the year of publication and the page(s).
If the verbatim text already contains quotation marks, these quotation marks become single quotation marks in the text. This is a quote within quote:
«And what does Goethe think? In his statement, which has already been quoted several times, he contrasted the «clearly narrative» epic with the lyric as enthusiastically excited» (Vogt, 2002, p. 122).
Indirect quotations are paraphrased, i.e. the quotation is not reproduced verbatim.
Wilpert says a romance novel is a story where love is at the center. (cf. Wilpert, 2001, p. 465.)
In the case of an indirect quotation, no quotation marks are used, but the source must be given here as well. For this purpose, the Abbreviation cf., for comparisonused.
Quotation marks for emphasis
Quotation marks can be used to emphasize parts of words, words, or pieces of text. This includes:
Parts of words, words or parts of text about which a statement is made (e.g. proverbs or other expressions).
The saying «just miss it is over» is true, but not particularly comforting.
Ironic emphasis