Quotes Inside Or Outside Period
White writing in 1959 noted that t ypographical usage dictates the comma be inside the marks though logically it seems not to belong there 36.
Quotes inside or outside period. This however is not true for other punctuation marks long answer. In other words in the predigital era when fonts were fixed width setting a period or comma outside the quotation marks would have created an unsightly gap. This is the opposite of what happens with a period or comma. Quotation marks with commas and periods.
The main problem that people have with using quotes is also a fundamental one. One of the most common question people ask me is whether periods and commas go inside or outside a closing quotation mark and there s a reason everyone is confused. Today as promised we ll talk about how to mix quotation marks with other punctuation. In journalism school i learned that periods always go inside quotes so when i see them outside of the quotes it looks very awkward.
This has always been a pet peeve. When you use a colon semicolon parenthesis exclamation mark or question mark the american rules dictate that the punctuation should go outside of the quotes. Does the period at the end of the quote go inside or outside of the. The period always goes inside the quotation marks.
This page has examples showing the different conventions for placing punctuation inside or outside quotation marks. He said we need to tell the boss right away she reported that the boss was in her words miffed. The answer is both yes and no. William strunk jr and e.
In any case block quotes don t need quotation marks to set them off from the remaining text even though they are direct quotes. In the uk the tendency is to place them outside. 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. Periods come inside with only one exception the period always comes inside closing quotation marks.
In the us periods and commas are placed inside quotation marks. Read on to find out why and lessen the confusion. Block quotes are long quotes that are separated from the surrounding text. Usually they appear as a separate paragraph or series of paragraphs with a different font a change in the line spacing or a wider margin.
Does punctuation go inside quotation marks. This rule applies even if only one quoted word ends the sentence. Vic on august 11 2009 4 28 pm. Do i put the period inside or outside the quotation marks.