formatting nested quotes

formatting nested quotes

Posted Feb 1, 2008 16:40 UTC (Fri) by jabby (subscriber, #2648)
In reply to: Tagging of press articles by ncm
Parent article: The future of Linux: what it means for Wikipedia (apc)

I think another source of confusion is the use of double-quotes within double-quotes. Even if an original text uses double-quotes, if I'm quoting it within something else, I'll usually convert them to single quotes and use double-quotes for the outermost level. If there are quotes within quotes within quotes, I just keep alternating with each nested level.

This approach increases the visual parseability, removes ambiguity, and avoids confusion should a typo result in the accidental omission of one quote mark.

For this blurb, it would have looked like this instead:

"Kernel release 2.6.24 came out on January 24, just before linux.conf.au began. Corbet estimates 2.6.25 will be finalised sometime around April. That rapid cycle represents an astonishing volume of new code. 'We are adding about 2000 lines of code to the kernel every single day of the year, without exception,' Corbet said. 'Nobody can really keep up with this [on their own] any more. It's an amazing process, and it seems to be working.' The project which those numbers immediately bring to mind is Wikipedia, which uses similar open source principles, along with an 'anyone can contribute' ethos."

Maybe there's not a significant difference for other readers. Still, I think it helps.

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