User:DIYeditor/sandbox/Scare quotes

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This guideline is a part of the English Wikipedia's Manual of Style.

It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply. Any substantive edit to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.

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This page in a nutshell: Quotes to distance the editor from what is being said should not be used to imply that the common use of a term is questionable.

How an article is formatted can impact the apparent POV of the editors. Quotation marks, when not marking an actual quotation, may be interpreted as "scare quotes", indicating that the writer is distancing themself from the otherwise common interpretation of the quoted expression. Use of quotes in this sense should be limited to cases where it is necessary to indicate that an extreme fringe use of the term in quotes is being employed, or something substantially inconsistent with keeping a neutral point of view if stated in the voice of the editor.

Quotation should be used, with attribution, to present emotive opinions that cannot be expressed in Wikipedia's own voice, but never to present cultural norms as simply opinional:

Appropriate: Siskel and Ebert called the film "unforgettable".
Inappropriate: The site is considered "sacred" by the religion's scriptures.

Concise opinions that are not overly emotive can often be reported with attribution instead of direct quotation. Use of quotation marks around simple descriptive terms can often seem to imply something doubtful regarding the material being quoted; sarcasm or weasel words, like "supposedly" or "so-called", might be inferred.

Preferred: Siskel and Ebert called the film interesting.
Unnecessary and may imply doubt: Siskel and Ebert called the film "interesting".
Should be quoted: Siskel and Ebert called the film "interesting but heart-wrenching".

Direct quotation should not be used to preserve the formatting preferred by an external publisher (especially when the material would otherwise be unchanged), as this tends to have the effect of "scare-quoting":

Appropriate: The animal is listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
Inappropriate: The animal is listed as "Endangered" on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.