Quotes Inside Or Outside A Period

And question marks and exclamation points require that you analyze the sentence and make a decision based on context.

Quotes inside or outside a period. Semicolons colons asterisks and dashes always go outside the closing quotation mark. It is far better for them to continue using the british style than to incongruously blend the two. If i m quoting winston churchill i d put his direct words in quotes. This rule applies even if only one quoted word ends the sentence.

In the uk the tendency is to place them outside. He said we need to tell the boss right away she reported that the boss was in her words miffed. The period is unique among punctuation marks in that yes it always goes inside the quotation marks. Periods come inside with only one exception the period always comes inside closing quotation marks.

If we try to force international students to adopt the american style they will end up mixing the two styles sometimes placing commas and periods inside sometimes outside quotation marks. When something is set in quotation marks it is separated. The standard rule in american punctuation is that periods go inside quotation marks as do most commas even if the punctuation is not part of the quote. In american writing commas and periods almost always go inside quotation marks.

For instance he said i m going to the mall however this is not the case for all end punctuation marks. Jazz on january 12 2010 8 18 pm. It is an entity by itself though it is incorporated with the rest of the sentence and the sentences around it. It seems to me that common sense dictates.

When a period goes inside the quotation marks it is set aside as being part of the section in the marks. 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 you re using american english they go inside.

For other punctuation marks where the closing punctuation goes depends on which idea it refers to the sentence or. The main problem that people have with using quotes is also a fundamental one. If only select words or partial phrases are quoted the period should be outside the quotes. In american english periods and commas always go inside the closing quotation mark.

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. Some are included within the quotation marks if it makes sense and other are outside of it. In the us periods and commas are placed inside quotation marks.