An alternative to quotation marks to improve readability in a sentence?

Question

In general, you should use quotation marks for the titles of shorter pieces of work. But what if I'm listing several file names off a computer?

I went to his folder labeled “School Stuff.” I opened it and clicked on “Homework.” There was “Holodomor,” “The American Revolution,” “Book Report,” and “Tom Sawyer.”

To me it makes the sentence read very clunkily. Is there a smoother way? If this is the best option: commas generally go inside quotation marks, but should I follow British rules (punctuation outside)? Since the comma is not in the file name?

Answer 1

In fiction you can skip the quotes. If you really feel the need to inform the reader that some words are to be interpreted as labels or titles of something, then you could chage the typeface to italic.

From your example:

I went to his folder labeled School Stuff. I opened it and clicked on Homework. There was Holodomor, The American Revolution, Book Report and Tom Sawyer.

As for whether to follow British or American rules, that depends on the standard that you need to follow. You should check with the publisher if you have one, otherwise pick the one that you prefer.