Calling all pedants!

*brain bleeds*

I have tried for 17 years to get people at work to use proper punctuation and so on, but most don't seem to know how to use it and are disinclined to learn. Personally I think it looks unprofessional, but the clients are as bad, so maybe they don't notice.

If the bit I'm quoting includes lots of apostrophes, especially if they're at or near the end of the quote, then I'm tempted to use double-quotes so that the quote marks stand out from the apostrophes. I suppose that's not the 'correct' way to do it, but it works for me.

Punctuation and grammar style guides can be a pain to adhere to and you still don't know that you're right: you're just sticking to one set of rules while breaking others. Even the most rigorous and consistent sets of guides always leave grey areas to stumble across. Just go with what seems right to you: if your language is clear enough, everyone will know exactly what you mean and the punctuation becomes less important.

Styles guides are essential for people who produce professional technical literature and so I'm very familiar with them. Nokia's style guide was over 100 pages. But one thing that rarely featured in the style guides that I used was the use of quotation marks, perhaps because quotes and speech were not needed in a technical manual. However, I would say that a quote should be surrounded by double quotes whilst a term in single quotes indicates an apology for the correct term. (Apologies for the correct term were deprecated in technical literature.)

So in your example, we would write "Instead of interpreting, the player intervenes in a kind of 'frenetic virtual world' (Mactavish 2002) in which interactivity brings a greater degree of immersion". More often we would leave out the single apostrophes because they don't add any meaning. Style guides were emphatic on emphasis: either bold or italic but never quotes and never, ever capitals.

Your following example makes me shudder:

He had to leave the restaurant because he had 'forgotten' his wallet.

Either he had forgotten his wallet or he had not. If he had forgotten his wallet then don't put it in quotes. If he had not forgotten his wallet then don't pretend that he had.

I would suggest that block quotes (quotes of more than one sentence) do need quotation marks even if they are indented because it would otherwise be ambiguous whether they were actually quotes and not some other abstract idea.

It's the opposite in most cases in the US. Double quotation marks are the standard for all cited quotes, be they spoken or written. A quote within a quote, ironic intentions, and emphasis all call for single quotation marks, although recent technological advances are auguring for the substitution of italicization instead.

However, as noted, it will depend upon which style manual or guide is considered to be de riguer for the student's work. That should have been set out for the student by their advisor and anyone reading and critiquing the work should be familiar with the demands of whatever style manual the student has been expected to follow in writing the dissertation.

Here in the US, it's usually the American Psychological Association (APA) manual or the Chicago Style manual. Strunk & White is the usual manual cited for the general public, or for writing done for less demanding topics than graduate theses.

We were taught to use quote marks for direct speech, i.e. the man said "I have forgotten my wallet".

In the example I used, the word 'forgotten' in quote marks is not meant to be direct speech but an implied sarcastic tone - 'scare quotes'.

Wikipedia:


My confusion comes as to whether this should be in double or single quote marks. Direct speech is always in double, but for other uses I'm not sure whether it matters. In any case, I guess consistency is the main thing.

Indeed but I'm questioning whether an apology for the correct term belongs in a PhD. It's important to use the correct term so that the text is technically correct without any scare quotes. In a PhD you would not say "The lunch lady plopped a glob of 'food' onto my tray" and leave the reader guessing what was meant. You would spell it out, "The lunch lady plopped a glob of something onto my tray that was supposed to be food but looked inedible." Otherwise the text is ambiguous. Was it food, did it look inedible or did it taste inedible. You might use an apology for the correct term in popular fiction because it adds colour and the actual meaning is unimportant but in a PhD you need to be precise.

If by chance your employer is writing their dissertation for Aberystwyth University, see the link below. If for some other college, a couple of minutes of searching should find the same requirements for the other college.

Aberystwyth University Department of Theatre Film & Television Studies mandatory style handbook:

1. How do I format my written assignments?

During the course of your studies you will be asked to complete a variety of written assignments, including essays, portfolios, textual and critical analyses and notebooks. The instructions for these will vary and you should adhere to these closely. Dissertations in particular have special rules regarding the format in which they should be presented and the Dissertation Module Handbook details these.

In general, however, there are some basic formatting conventions that you should follow whenever you submit written work:

• All written assignments must be presented in word processed format, unless you are instructed otherwise by the Module Co-ordinator or the assessment requirements of the module require so.
• Assignments should be single-sided, presented in 12pt. font and be double-spaced.
• Pages should be numbered consecutively in Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, etc.) in the bottom right hand corner.
• Assignments must be fully referenced (see below).
• All quotations should be enclosed in single quotation marks.
• For longer quotations of 50 words or more, present the quotation as a separate paragraph and indented from the main text. Quotation marks are not required in this instance.
• In titles capitalize the first letter of the first word and of all the principal words including nouns and proper adjectives (e.g., Jurassic Park, A Midsummer Night's Dream, News at Ten).
• Use italics for titles of published books, plays, poems, films, journals and classical works (e.g., Citizen Kane, Twelfth Night).
• The italicizing of words, phrases or sentences for emphasis should be done sparingly. The same applies for underlining or emboldening text, or using exclamation marks!!!
• In Part 2 assessed coursework is not normally returned to you. If you wish to receive a copy with the marker’s comments, you should submit two copies of the assignment, one of which will be returned to you.