Quote Marks Inside Or Outside Period

For example if the sentence is a question but the words in the quote are not the question mark would go outside the quotation marks.

Quote marks inside or outside period. Periods come inside with only one exception the period always comes inside closing quotation marks. For instance he said i m going to the mall however this is not the case for all end punctuation marks. When a period goes inside the quotation marks it is set aside as being part of the section in the marks. In the us periods and commas are placed inside quotation marks.

It is an entity by itself though it is incorporated with the rest of the sentence and the sentences around it. In the uk the tendency is to place them outside. Commas and periods always go inside the quotation marks in american english. The most common question people ask about quotation marks is whether periods and commas go inside or outside and the answer depends on where your audience lives because in american english we always put periods and commas inside quotation marks but in british english periods and commas can go inside or outside kind of like the american rules for question marks and exclamation points.

If you re using american english they go inside. The period is unique among punctuation marks in that yes it always goes inside the quotation marks. And question marks and exclamation points require that you analyze the sentence and make a decision based on context. Luckily when it comes to periods and commas the answer to whether they go inside or outside the quotation mark is much simpler.

Question marks and exclamation marks sometimes go inside sometimes stay outside. That s always true whether the quotation appears at the beginning of the sentence in the middle of the sentence or at the very end. Colons and semicolons are placed outside quotations while question marks and exclamation marks follow the logic of the sentence. If i m quoting winston churchill i d put his direct words in quotes.

Semicolons colons asterisks and dashes always go outside the closing quotation mark. In american english periods and commas always go inside the closing quotation mark. For other punctuation marks where the closing punctuation goes depends on which idea it refers to the sentence or the quote. This rule applies even if only one quoted word ends the sentence.

You ve got to be carefully taught wrote oscar hammerstein ii. In british style spacing issues are less pronounced because it uses single quotation marks instead of double and commas and periods are placed outside the quotation marks. Dashes colons and semicolons almost always go outside the quotation marks.