356 THE FACTS ON FILE GUIDE TO GOOD WRITING Question marks are frequently used in requests: May I sit down? Could I open the window?
Longer requests, however, tend to end in a period not a question mark, especially where they are closer to an order: Would all customers please check their change before leaving.
A special case deserving attention is that of direct questions containing such “thinking” verbs as wonder, which generally require a question mark: How will this story end, we wonder?
Note, however, that if the verb is in the past, then the question should be treated as reported speech and therefore does not require a question mark: How would the story end, we wondered.
As with exclamation points, question marks should not be doubled or tripled for emphasis, except in very informal contexts, such as personal diaries or notes to friends. The same applies to the combination of a question mark and an exclamation mark at the end of a sentence.
QUOTATION MARKS Quotation marks (“ ” or ‘ ’), or inverted commas, are inserted at the start and end of direct quotations to indicate that what they enclose represents actual spoken words: “Stand to attention!” the Major barked. “Come in,” she whispered, “but don’t make a noise.”
The quotation marks surround only the actual words spoken and include any punctuation that forms part of the quotation (as shown in the first example above). Note that in the case of commas and periods the comma or period comes before the closing quotation marks (as in the second example). Quotation marks are not used in reference to reported speech, although they might be used for specific phrases that the writer wishes to highlight as having been actually spoken: He called the whole business “a regrettable misunderstanding.”
Alternatively, they may be used to convey to the reader that a particular word or phrase is not one the writer would normally choose to use: