Goodreads Authors/Readers discussion

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Cynthia Lord

I am a sixth-grade reading teacher. My students read Rules by Cynthia Lord over the summer. Should a student ask, I am not sure that I understand why triple quotes were used on page 39. David is quoting another character's quote (Toad), but to me I this is a quote within a quote. Why the extra set of quotes? What am I missing?

Hi Cynthia;

I'm a professional author and former school librarian (middle school). I am not familiar with the book you mentioned. However...

From my experience in public education I know that (in Calif.) schools abided by grammar and punctuation under the guidelines of the Modern Langauge Association, "MLA." MLA is the most commonly used guidlines in American public schools.

However, the world of publishing is quite varied in its use of style guidelines. Publishers, esp. book publishers, may use any one of the best known style manuals: Chicago Manual of Style "CMS" or Associated Press "AP" or New York Times "NYT." Among these three major style manuals there are numerous variations and then publishing houses often impose their own variations. For exmaple, I once wrote a feature article for a major newsstand magazine, they told me to follow AP guidelines and then e-mailed me 2 pages of exceptions to AP that were unique to their publishing preferences.

I suggest finding the website for the publisher of the book and seeing if they have a Q&A page for teachers, or contact the the media department for the publisher and ask them your question. Most often, in the front matter of the book, near or on the page for copyright notice, there is a website URL for the publisher. You could also Google the publisher.

Knowing which style manual the publisher used for the book would help you to explain this situation.

Hello all - Just a quick hello and reminder that my new short story is available on my Blog (I'm a fantasy/humour author mostly)!

http://johndrhodesauthor.wordpress.com

A story about a chap who may seem very familiar to those who are heavily into Fantasy literature or films!(less)

Still love people to get my book:

Mr Memory - http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0057XV34W
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0057XV34W
https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0057XV34W

Hello,
I'm not sure where I should post this but I'll try here. If it's in the wrong place, someone reach out and direct me elsewhere.

I am an author and I've been interviewed by Kathy Reinhart at Ink Drop Interviews. Please visit http://inkdropinterviews.wordpress.co... to read.

Many thanks!

Veronica Randolph Batterson