Quotation Marks & Punctuation ⁉️

• 🇺🇸 American English: Periods and commas ALWAYS go inside the closing quotation mark. This conventional view is losing ground to logical quotation, read on…
• 🇬🇧 British English: Full stops and commas usually go outside the closing quotation mark, unless the sense of the punctuation is part of the quotation. This follows a system called “logical punctuation” used on Wikipedia and by many international organisations and publications.

• “How dare you assume I’d like to go out with you,” he said, looking stunned.
• Thank you for your so-called “help.”
• “The only thing we have to fear,” said Franklin Roosevelt, “is fear itself.” The comma inside the quote mark is not part of the quotation.
• Shakespeare’s play Richard III contains the line “Now is the winter of our discontent.” Here, the period ends the quotation which goes on to say “Made glorious summer by this sun of York.“

• “Don’t underestimate me”, she said with a disarmingly friendly smile.
• I can never remember how to spell “bureaucracy”.
• “The only thing we have to fear”, said Franklin Roosevelt, “is fear itself.” The full stop inside the quote mark is part of the quotation.
• Shakespeare’s play Richard III contains the line “Now is the winter of our discontent”. Here, the full stop does not truncate the quotation.

• Maisie laughed at me saying, “you’ll never win the raffle” – just before they pulled my number from the hat.
• He couldn’t abide Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”; he played hooky in order to miss English classes.
• He was always quoting the line from Oscar Wilde’s “Dorian Gray”: “To define is to limit.”

• Bob snorted and said, “I don’t believe in zombies” – right before thirty of them emerged from the tunnel.
• Her favourite song was “Gangnam Style”; she spent weeks trying to learn the dance.
• She sang her favourite line from “I Don’t Wanna Stop”: “You’re either in or in the way.”

• If the ? or ! is part of your quotation, it stays inside the final quotation mark.
• If the ? or ! are not part of the quotation, they go outside the closing quotation mark.

• Gerry sighed, “Must we have this discussion yet again?”
• Joe lost his rag and snapped, “No way Zak, you cannot borrow my car!”

Not part of the quotation:

• Do you actually like “Hamlet”?
• I can’t wait to read John Irving’s new book “Avenue of Mysteries”!

• Reynold asked, “Can we have ice cream for dinner?”
• Mum snapped and shouted, “No, we cannot have ice cream for dinner!”

Not part of the quotation:

• Do you actually like “Gangnam Style”?
• I can’t believe you lied to me about the ending of “The Sixth Sense”!

• 🇺🇸 American English: Double quotation marks are used in almost all cases. Single quotation marks are only used to place a quotation within another quotation.
• 🇬🇧 British English: Double and single inverted commas are commonly used interchangeably.
• 🇺🇸 American English and 🇬🇧 British English both use single quotation marks to place a quotation within a quotation.

Readability can be improved using a space between the closing single and double quote:

• ’” (without space)
• ’ ”(with space)

• He said: “I agree.”
• She was quoted as saying: “I warned him very clearly: ‘Touch that drawer and I’ll shoot.’ ”

• She said: “Hello”.
• The defendant testified as follows: “I heard Sam say, ‘Hide the files from Delia.’ ”
• The defendant testified as follows: ‘I heard Sam say, “Hide the files from Delia.” ’

1. Add a comma after a title: When a title in a quotation ends with a question mark or exclamation point, add the comma.
2. Omit comma before an attribution: When a quotation, in a quotation, ends with a question mark, leave out the comma.

1. The poem we’re going to read today is “How Do I Love Thee?,” written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
2. “Happy Easter,” Tigger said. “How many days until Easter?” Eeyore asked.

1. The poem we’re going to read today is “How Do I Love Thee?,” written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
2. “Happy Easter,” Tigger said. “How many days until Easter?” Eeyore asked.