Do I Put Quotes Before Or After The Period
Note that the period goes inside all quote marks.
Do i put quotes before or after the period. The mla handbook notes by convention commas and periods that directly follow quotations go inside the closing quotation marks 88 thus in the following sentence the comma is placed after taught. Use single quotation marks for quotes within quotes. After the quotation marks insert your parenthetical reference and after that place a period. Period with parentheses or brackets.
Example did she say may i go rule 4. In addition to ending a sentence the period is used with certain abbreviations. The convention goes back at least to the nineteenth. The placement of a comma or period after a quotation by eric wirth.
The american style was developed based on typography. Why do periods and commas go inside quotation marks in mla style. When a comma or period is needed after a quotation publishers in the united states typically put the punctuation mark before the closing quotation mark. In american style the period always comes before the closing quotation marks.
In the british style the placement of the period depends upon whether the period is logically part of the quoted material. A m etc vol inc jr mrs tex and to omit periods with most uppercase abbreviations examples. To make an em dash in html type 8212. Fbi irs atm nato nbc tx.
Note however that many scientific and technical abbreviations are. The reason for this convention is to improve the appearance of the text. When you have a question outside quoted material and inside quoted material use only one question mark and place it inside the. But we must never speak of the times before the great rebirth.
It would look like this. And some said neither yes nor no 2 some people call themselves democrats. 1 he said no. 1 there are no ifs ands or buts about it 2 he said yes and she said no colons and semicolons always follow closing quotation marks of quoted material two examples.
See the examples in strunk white p. Commas or periods always precede closing quotation marks of quoted material two examples. You ve got to be carefully taught wrote oscar hammerstein ii. Period marks go before the.
When setting up type requiring the period to precede the quotation marks allowed better kerning. In such instances it s ok to break the traditional rules and put periods and commas outside the quotation marks if it makes your meaning clearer. The current style is to use periods with most lowercase and mixed case abbreviations examples. After the quotation marks because if put before the quotation mark that makes the quote seem like if it continues after what you wrote even if the quote has ended.
Although it is acceptable to break the rules it is usually better to use a method other than quotation marks to highlight your instructions. Vertical enumerated lists next.