quango

short for quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation. But no need to spell out

Queen, the

if necessary, Her Majesty, but not HM or HRH

Queen’s Birthday Honours

quotation marks

use double quotation marks except in headlines and with quotes within other quotes. For example, Dr Carter said: “The nurse said to me: ‘I am struggling to cope’. The problem was limited resources.”

quotes

words within quotation marks are assumed to represent direct speech. So if you are in any doubt about accuracy use indirect speech instead

precede a quote with a colon. The full stop goes inside the final quote mark

where the quote does not form a complete sentence, the full stop goes outside the quotation mark – for example, Dr Carter said he felt the nurses were “under great pressure”.

use commas if the sentence you are quoting is split – for example: “I felt,” said Dr Carter, “that the nurses were struggling to cope.”

“said” is usually a sufficient description of a person’s utterances. Avoid “explained”, “commented”, “ejaculated”

don’t assume that direct quotes from other sources are a) accurate or b) yours to take without attribution