When I type out my story using Word, the quotes come out like so: “” When I use any other word processor, though, they come out using regularly mono slanted quotes: "" Which is the standard for a manuscript, or does it not matter? Which one is better for standard use?
Strictly speaking, in manuscript it should be ", but the reality is that it won't matter. “” is a typeset open/close quote pair. But Word is the standard for electronic submission, and is expected for creating hardcopy submissions as well. Although it can be disabled, Word autoconverts the plain double quote to the open/close double quote pair. The thing to remember about manuscript format is that it originated for typewritten manuscripts, and typewriters only have a " key.
I agree that it doesn't matter for the actual submission, but keep in mind that if you submit electronically and have to provide some other format, the "smart quotes" that Word uses will sometimes disappear. For that reason, I disable it and just use regular quotes. That way, regardless of the format you need and the application being used to open the document on the other end, the quotation marks will appear.
Ah, okay. I actually did not realize that there was a way to disable the auto-slanting in Word, so I'll do that from now on to keep consistency among the various word processors I'm using. But most importantly, just to be safe when I'm submitting the manuscript, since like Cogito said, "" is the "strictly speaking standard"! Thanks, guys!
doesn't it depend on what font one is typing in?... i just checked and both tnr and courier come out 'aimed' left and right, arial's come out straight...
Some fonts have it and some don't. If you turn off smart quotes it shouldn't show up in any font. If you use them and switch between fonts it can be a problem.
I don't think that's a point that particularly matters since most submission guidelines I've seen request Times or Courier anyway, so Arial shouldn't even be a consideration, so far as I'm concerned. EDIT: To another point which I forgot to add in: whenever I have something to post from somewhere else (example being from Word to a post box here or on my Tumblr where I post a few things in writing), I copy it to notepad first and then into the posting box. If I'm copy-pasting from a blog or something, it retains weird backgrounds and formatting which notepad removes. Notepad is kindly enough to remove angled quotation marks and leave the straight up-and-down ones behind.
i don't see why whether one uses straight/curly/aimed marks should be an issue at all...what agent or editor is going to care which are used, as long as they are used correctly?... and if any do, they'll most likely say so in their guidelines...
