This topic falls just shy of the Oxford Comma in raising intense discussion amongst editors: Where does the punctuation go relative to quote marks? Yet another issue where the US and the rest of the world differ. Fortunately, it only affects commas and full stops (periods). Everyone agrees with how colons, semi-colons, and dashes are placed, and question and exclamation marks are fine, so we’re going to only touch on those, then tackle the tough stuff.
Everything Except Commas and Periods
As rare as colons, semi-colons, and dashes are, they always* go outside the quotes:
- Alan loved to quote from the TV show “Star Trek”: “That’s not logical.”
- Betty’s favourite poem was “The Jabberwocky”; she spent weeks memorising it.
- Carolyn leaned out of the treehouse and said, “It’s sturdy enough”—right before the branch creaked.
Question and exclamation marks go where they belong—if part of the quote, then inside. If part of the whole sentence and not the quote, then outside:
- David whined, “Can I have an ice cream now?”
- Mom waved her wooden spoon at him. “Not right before dinner!”
- The professor opened the lecture with a question: Who said, “I came, I saw, I conquered”?
- You have got to see the show “Alien Artefacts”!
- You actually like the show “Mystery Hunter”?
Fairly straightforward—no problems here.
Logical Punctuation
In the US style, commas and periods always goes inside—a simple rule but less logical. In the British style (also known as Logical Quotation), they go where they belong (same as question and exclamation marks)—inside if part, outside if not, similar to many other languages.
It’s that simple.
Of course, there’s a big exception to the US style: If the quoted material is technical, then the punctuation goes outside (same as the Logical style).
- My user name is “All.for.it”. (final period not part)
- Did you use the password “it,is.a;BIG!1”? (question mark not part)
- To put a non-breaking space in HTML, use “ ”. (period not part)
So Why Do We Do It?
Some of the arguments for why we’d want punctuation inside the quote mark are based on a quote from The Elements of Style: “typographical usage dictates the comma be inside the marks, though logically it seems not to belong there”—to avoid an unsightly gap? These days, with digital fonts, it isn’t needed.
Another contention, also based on typographic issues but a physical one, says that the small pieces of metal were delicate and could break. That may have been true at one time, but the British switched over when they wanted to make it more logical and less mechanical.
Either way, the typographic reasons no longer apply, so we are free to put punctuation in the logical place.
*When I say “always”, please keep in mind that there are exceptions to every rule, but the exceptions in this case are so rare, that I can’t think of any, so I feel justified in using that term. As we’ve noted, there are two words you should always remember to never use: always and never.