Quotation marks for video game and movie titles?

1. 93

   poppyrposted 5 years ago

   I currently have 73 articles on LevelSkip. Recently, the editor has been adding quotation marks to the video game title before moving it to the niche site (sometimes to movie titles on ReelRundown as well). The thing is, if you actually go on LevelSkip, you'll see plenty of articles with titles in them that have no quotation marks at all.
   
   I don't like quotation marks; they don't give anything to the article and of course titles like Pokemon and Dragon Age are pretty obviously not going to be confused with anything else. Should I change them back? Leave them as they are? Go through all 60+ of my other LevelSkip articles and change them so all of the titles are in quotation marks? Any advice at all would be appreciated.

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      DrMark1961posted 5 years agoin reply to this

      I just did 2 google searches, one with quotation marks, one without. They were virtually the same. I do not think Google is going to send you fewer searchers because of that.
      There may have been changes since those other articles were added to Levelskip. If they are now adding the quotation marks, maybe they have not added them to the other articles because they have not yet been edited. (Is there an editor who has worked with you a lot? You could ask him or her if HP has a new policy on this.)
      Would I change them back? No, I would not since it is not affecting your traffic. If this really bothers you I guess you could try to do 5 as an experiment and see if HP just changes them back.

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         poppyrposted 5 years agoin reply to this

         Thanks for checking! I wasn't that worried about Google, just my own obsession with keeping everything consistent. Quotation marks look garish imo. Thank you for taking a look, though, that must have taken some time. I appreciate it.

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   2. 87

      MizBejabbersposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      Poppy, HP says they use the APA Manual of Style (American Psychological Association), however, I've noticed that some of their editors may not be educated in APA Style. I use this style to the letter now on HP, and if someone changes my style, I point this out to the hugpages team. They are usually apologetic when one of their editors makes an error.

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         poppyrposted 5 years agoin reply to this

         Thanks for everything. From now on I'll use quotation marks in the titles if that's the format they'd like. At some point I'll go through the rest and change them as well.

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            Robinposted 5 years agoin reply to this

            Thanks, Poppy! 

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2. 60

   paradigmsearchposted 5 years ago

   https://www.thoughtco.com/punctuating-titles-1857242
   
   I'm guessing the editor is classifying video games as commercial.
   
   Update. As for movie titles, looks like the editor got it wrong?

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   1. 93

      poppyrposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      Thank you! I checked out the link. I think both films and games would appear under the "Italics" category although they're not listed. It must be a specific editor or two who have decided to start doing it.
      
      I suppose it's not really a big deal, but I might chang them back and see what happens. Or email them and ask permission first.

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         Jean Bakulaposted 5 years agoin reply to this

         I use italics for movies, book titles and the like. I find the editors are not all on the same page depending on the niche.

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   2. 90

      satomkoposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      Nearly all style guides will explain that the titles of long works like movies and games should be either underlined or in italics.  To put those titles in quotation marks is flat out wrong, and I've had to go back and correct this error on several of my hubs, too, once they were "snipped."

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   FatFreddysCatposted 5 years ago

   I write a lot about music and movies and I've always put album/film titles in italics. It looks cleaner than quote marks.

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   SmartAndFunposted 5 years ago

   I saw somewhere recently, I think in a forum post here, that HP generally prefers we format our articles in APA style. I'm not sure if that is correct; I don't recall ever hearing that before.
   
   If it is correct, perhaps the editor is simply putting your articles in proper APA style. APA style says that titles of larger containers (books, movies, journals, magazines, newspapers, music albums) should be italicized, and smaller pieces within the larger italicized works should be in quotation marks.
   
   For example, The first chapter in Lord of the Flies is titled "The Sound of the Shell."
   
   or
   
   My favorite song from the album Lonerism is "Elephant."
   
   Just wondering if that might be what is going on with the editing.

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      MizBejabbersposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      I think you may be referring to a statement that I made. I saw it in an email, and I don't recall if it was a personal email from them when an editor was tweaking an old article of mine or if it was in one of their "blanket" emails.

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5. 92

   LongTimeMotherposted 5 years ago

   Search engines apparently prefer single quotation marks.  Double can interrupt the 'flow' according to an interview I read with a Google technician.

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      MizBejabbersposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      If that is so, then we all need to be informed because APA style does not conform to this.

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6. 85

   Robinposted 5 years ago

   The Editors at HubPages LOVE these conversations!  You are correct, SmartandFun, we follow APA format.  Here's a good link to understand when to use italics vs. quotes.  So, you are correct that we should use italics for video game titles.  The problem is that the HubTool doesn't allow italics in titles, so instead we are using quotes to differentiate.  Editorially, we decided this was the best course of action, but I'm happy to listen to differing opinions!  Thanks again for the discussion!

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      GA Andersonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      Well damn Robin. That was an extremely honest and human explanation.
      
      Makes sense, and explains the motive. Better be careful, this kind of interaction could fall afoul of modern "cover your butt" protocols.
      
      GA ;-)

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         Robinposted 5 years agoin reply to this

         That made me laugh. 

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      MizBejabbersposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      Robin, I clicked on your link and read it and now I'm confused as to the title case and the sentence case. I've used APA style in the past as an editor on documents from a doctoral dissertation to an ebook I'm editing now for a client. This is the first time I've seen a reference to the use of sentence case. Would you please elaborate on when HP would prefer us to use sentence case, please?

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