Scare Quotes - Style Guidelines

Style Guidelines

Style guides generally recommend the avoidance of scare quotes in impartial works, such as in encyclopedia articles or academic discussion.

Chicago Manual of Style (CMS), 15th edition acknowledges this type of use but cautions against overuse in section 7.58: "Quotation marks are often used to alert readers that a term is used in a nonstandard, ironic, or other special sense They imply 'This is not my term' or 'This is not how the term is usually applied.' Like any such device, scare quotes lose their force and irritate readers if overused."

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Famous quotes containing the word style:

    Compare the history of the novel to that of rock ‘n’ roll. Both started out a minority taste, became a mass taste, and then splintered into several subgenres. Both have been the typical cultural expressions of classes and epochs. Both started out aggressively fighting for their share of attention, novels attacking the drama, the tract, and the poem, rock attacking jazz and pop and rolling over classical music.
    W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. “Material Differences,” Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)