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This
month, let’s look at one of the most common errors of writing; where to
put quotation marks in relation to punctuation (question marks,
exclamation marks, commas, dashes, colons, semicolons, or periods. Let’s
start with a quiz; can you guess which one of these is correctly written?
1.
“The food
is in the cabinet, Bob!” she bellowed.
2.
“The food is in
the cabinet, Bob”! she bellowed.
If
you guessed 1, you are correct. The general rule that covers a multitude
of poor punctuation is this:
Punctuation
goes inside the quotation marks.
So
then, where does all the confusion come from? Why are quotation marks so
often placed incorrectly? Let’s look at some exceptions to the rules of
usage to unravel the mystery and improve your writing.
First,
British English verses American English: the rules differ! Here, we will
only be looking at the American rules (but we give you links for finding
the differences between the two). Second, while the rule never bends with
periods and commas, there are exceptions with the question mark, the
exclamation mark, and the dash. They go inside the quote marks when they
belong with the quoted material, but go outside when they belong to the
main sentence. Examples:
“When is dinner?” Mary asked.
The quoted words in this example
are asking a question, so the question mark is contained within the
quotation marks.
Does he always yell, "Get me
my coffee!"?
The exclamation mark here
belongs to the words of the yelling boss, while the question mark does
not.
Did you say, “That’s not
possible”?
To put the question mark inside
the quotation marks in a sentence like this would imply that “That’s not
possible” was a question rather than a statement. Common sense helps
here.
One
more rule: When you have a quotation within a quotation, use single
quotation marks for the enclosed or innermost quotation. Example:
The
entertainment reporter for the newspaper explained, "When I talked
to the artist, he said, ‘I simply refuse to express myself in any other
medium than watercolor.'"
With
so many exceptions, it may seem the rule is hard to follow. Just
remember, if you are not certain, and haven’t time to find the answer,
90% of the time in business writing, you are correct if you put your
punctuation inside your quote marks. To be absolutely certain, hire
WriteWorks to proofread any critical document before it goes out,
representing you or your business. Meanwhile be sure to look at our WriteWorks
Resource Center column this month, where we feature self-help
links for further grammar research.
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