To quote or not to quote

The quotation mark is often misunderstood. Perhaps that is because it's shy and likes to stay at home on Friday nights rather than associate with party punctuation like apostrophes and the biggest party animal of them all, the exclamation point.

In general, full quotation marks should be used only to denote directly attributed speech (someone's exact words) and special-use words that would be confusing without this emphasis. Do NOT use quotation marks for regular emphasis.

Incorrect:
We offer a "happy pen" to every new customer.
No emphasis is needed here. We won't have to explain or define a 30-day cookie.

Correct:
We offer our new "maties" a free pen.
Maties in this case is a new term we just coined to refer to something we just made up (refers to our special clients who happen to be pirates.) We can't assume people know what it means.

When quoting someone, you must report every word they say accurately.
Example:
"It's hotter than Hades here today," said John.

If you didn't quite catch every word, you will have to paraphrase rather than risk misquoting someone.
Example:
John said it's hot in Kansas City today.

You also use quotation marks for all composition titles such as books, computer games, movies, operas, plays, poems, songs, television programs and the titles of lectures, speeches and works of art.
One exception is newspaper titles, which are always placed in italics.
Example: The Wall Street Journal wrote a scathing review of "The Da Vinci Code."