Single Quotes Inside Or Outside Punctuation

Commas and periods always go inside the quotation marks in american english.

Single quotes inside or outside punctuation. In american usage commas and periods at the end of quotes always go inside the quotation marks. Dashes colons and semicolons almost always go outside the quotation marks. So if the headline includes the title of a song short story or a quotation you would use single quotation marks. In the us periods and commas are placed inside quotation marks.

Quotations within a headline in a headline single quotation marks are used in place of the standard double quotation marks. In a town outside brisbane i saw tourists go home written on a wall. Generally you ll see this used when the headline is in reference to something someone said. In the uk the tendency is to place them outside.

Notice that the secondary quote in each example is placed within single quotation marks. Colons and semicolons are placed outside quotations while question marks and exclamation marks follow the logic of the sentence. The correct choice is almost always inside. Also notice that the periods are placed inside the single quotes.

But then someone told me pay it no mind lad note that the period goes inside both the single and double quotation marks. Use single quotation marks for quotations within quotations. In british usage they can go either inside or outside. Usually this implies that the author doesn t agree with the use of the term.

Quotation marks around single words can occasionally be used for emphasis but only when quoting a word or term someone else used. Less commonly single quotation marks are used in place of parentheses in which case the translation is not set off with commas. Also any punctuation otherwise required by the structure of the sentence is placed outside the single quotation marks.