6.6 See quotation marks as red flags
This may seem a small issue, but imagine the reader's reaction to this:
I know that this subject may be a little "difficult" for some people.
Though the quotation marks may have been meant as something other than a harpoon, they can certainly be interpreted that way. Quotation marks can be taken as deriding the word or words they surround. In the case above, a reader could interpret the writer's meaning as "difficult" for dunderheads. How anyone will interpret words within stray quotation marks is entirely unpredictable.
Save quotation marks for true quotations from third parties--not from you, the writer, or from any potential reader of your writing.
==>Guidelines ==>Tone