q: in cases where the quotation marks don't balance, it may be difficult to automatically convert quotation marks to the appropriate q.../q form, and time consuming to manually proof. Accordingly, I suggest this step be left as optional.
I actually agree here. I prefer using " instead of <q>. Can any of the experts explain why this is a "bad idea"?
Presumably <q> </q> is meant to top and tail a quotation, making it possible to extract quotations from within a work if desired. However I'd be worried about going to <q> because of the possible ambiguities in quotations of multiple paragraphs, and the dangers of these being retransformed to " incorrectly for the text versions. "We often find at DP that people brought up on reading only contemporary works, which rarely quote several paragraphs at a time, incorrectly expect that each paragraph of a quotation needs a closing quote mark. "People who have read a lot of 19th century books are well aware that correct usage is that while each paragraph in a quoted passage starts with a quotation mark, only the final paragraph in a quoted passage gets a closing one. "Like this."