---

Back to Tip List

01/08/01: Punctuating with Quotation Marks

Can you identify incorrect punctuation in any of these sentences?

1. The suspect told the arresting officer, "I was nowhere near the crime".
2. "Walk to the corner", she explained to the child, "and turn left".
3. The woman screamed to her son, "Stop pulling the dog's tail"!
4. What did you do when Paul said, "You can pay for dinner tonight?"
5.     John said, "I have just finished reading Browning's 'My Last Duchess'."

Each of these sentences contains an error involving the punctuation near the closing quotation marks.

RULE 1: ALL periods and commas ALWAYS go inside ALL quotation marks (i.e., single AND double). Thus, sentences 1, 2, and 5 should look like this:

1. The suspect told the arresting officer, "I was nowhere near the crime."
2. "Walk to the corner," she explained to the child, "and turn left."
5. John said, "I have just finished reading Browning's 'My Last Duchess.'"

Keep in mind that periods and commas go inside even if only the last word in a sentence is in quotation marks and even when we have single quotation marks inside of double:

We were sorry to see that the sign on the door said "Closed."

She wrote in her diary, "Everywhere we looked we found signs that read 'Closed.'"

RULE 2: Question marks and exclamation points can go inside OR out, depending on the meaning of the sentence in question. Thus, sentences 3 and 4 should look like this:

3. The woman screamed to her son, "Stop pulling the dog's tail!"
4. What did you do when Paul said, "You can pay for dinner tonight"?

In number 3, the part of the sentence that was exclaimed was the part inside the quotation marks, so the exclamation point belongs there.  In number 4, the larger sentence was the question (What did you do. . . ?), not the part inside the quotation marks, so the question mark belongs outside.

TEST YOURSELF: How would you punctuate around the closing quotation marks in the following sentences?

1. Bill asked Sandra, "Will you marry me"
2. Did Sandra say to Bill, "We can be married in April"
3. The director thundered furiously to the actors, "We are not leaving until everyone knows his or her lines "
4. The librarian whispered to us, "The sign on the wall says 'Quiet'"

Check for the answers in next week's tip.

ANSWERS:

1. Bill asked Sandra, "Will you marry me?"
2. Did Sandra say to Bill, "We can be married in April"?
3. The director thundered furiously to the actors, "We are not leaving until everyone knows his or her lines!"
4. The librarian whispered to us, "The sign on the wall says 'Quiet.'" [The period goes inside the double AND the single quotation marks.]

Copyright 2001 Get It Write

Back to Tip List

---

GIW Home | Most Recent Tip | Subscribe | Books | Contact

---