Punctuation and Quotations
With the several types of punctuation, there should be some hard and fast rules for their usage, right? Well, there are. The problem that people have generally lies in either they don’t know the rules or they confuse American rules with British rules.
The Period and the Comma
When in a quote, the period always goes inside the quotation marks. It never goes outside of the quotation marks because it can be easily lost and mistaken for a printing error.
Example: “I am going to the mall tonight.”
Like the period, the comma always goes inside the quotation marks.
Example: “Bob,” she said, “We need to be quiet in the library.”
The Colon and the Semicolon
The colon always goes on the outside of the quotation marks, unless it is part of the quoted text.
Example: I like the theme from The Sun: Love thy neighbor.
The semicolon always goes on the outside of the quotation marks, unless it is part of the quoted text.
Example: Jesus always said, “Love thy neighbor”; these are definitely words to live by.
The Question Mark and the Exclamation Mark
Some marks of punctuation depend on the context of the words as to whether they will go inside or outside the quotation marks.
The question mark is one such punctuation mark. When what is in the quotation marks is a question, the question mark will go inside the quotation marks. When the entire sentence is a question, not the quoted material by itself, the question mark goes outside the quotation marks.
Example: When we finally found Jackie, I asked, “Where have you been?”
Example: Why do many people prefer responding, “Just kidding”?
The exclamation mark is used in the same way as the question mark, depending on the context.
Example: “Hey!” I cried.
Example: “I am so tired of these so-called “girls”!
As a final thought about common errors in punctuation usage, there is generally no need to use more than one at the same time. For example, when quoting a person, a comma generally comes before the end quotation mark when the speaker follows. However, if other punctuation is used in this place, such as the question or exclamation mark, the comma is omitted.