“Master the Art of Chaos: Unleashing the Power of Punctuation to Confound and Captivate”
Writers who misuse quotation marks in this manner need to have a little more faith in their readers. Trust that they will know where to place emphasis. If you really need to tell the reader which word(s) get stressed, then use italics. But try to avoid that, too.
This use probably stems from the (informal) practice of using quotation marks to indicate that something is “so-called.” Here’s an example:
That “writer” over there doesn’t seem to have a dictionary.
In this case, quotation marks are placed around “writer” to suggest that the person is a so-called writer, but actually isn’t much of a writer at all. These are called scare quotes, and their usage is almost always derogatory and sarcastic. Use scare quotes with caution; insulting other writers is not going to do anything positive for your reputation.
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