The Weltchek Weekly

I’m recognized as a collaborative and “hands-on” advisor to my clients.

“Why the quotation marks?” I asked as I read this line in a LinkedIn bio.

The author’s not using hands-on in an ironic, sarcastic or skeptical sense, which is one reason you use quotation marks. Hands-on isn’t a slang, made-up, or brand-new term, either. If it were, quotation marks would be correct. And, obviously, the writer’s not quoting anyone—the punctuation mark’s primary role.

In most business writing, other than to quote dialogue or introduce a new term or way of saying something, you shouldn’t have much use for quotation marks. (Regarding titles of work, styles vary. Some say quotation marks, others say italics. Choose one and be consistent.)

Read Quotation Marks Do Not Connote Exclusivity, to see how a Madison Avenue establishment got it all wrong—and another example that gets it just right.

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