Where Do Quotation Marks Go?
Despite what you may see practiced, the fact is that the period and comma always go inside the quotation marks. (The rules in British English are different, which may be where some of the confusion arises.)
Periods and Commas
Periods go inside the quotation marks:
- Correct: The people of the pine barrens are often called “pineys.”
- Incorrect: The people of the pine barrens are often called “pineys”.
Commas go inside the quotation marks:
- “Let’s grab some coffee,” Mark suggested, “before heading to the library.”
- “Let’s grab some coffee”, Mark suggested, “before heading to the library.”
The semicolon, colon, dash, question mark, and exclamation point can fall inside or outside of the quotation marks, depending on whether the punctuation is a part of the original quote:
Other punctuation
- This measurement is commonly known as “dip angle”; dip angle is the angle formed between a normal plane and a vertical.
- Built only 50 years ago, Shakhtinsk—“minetown”—is already seedy.
- When she was asked the question “Are rainbows possible in winter?” she answered by examining whether raindrops freeze at temperatures below 0 °C. (Quoted material has its own punctuation.)
- Did he really say “Dogs are the devil’s henchmen”? (The quote is a statement, but the full sentence is a question.)
Single Quotation Marks
Now that you know what quotation marks are used for, you may wonder about the single quotation marks—the one that looks like ‘this.’ Single quotation marks are used for quotes within quotes:
You may even encounter situations where you’ll close single quotation marks and double quotation marks at the same time, leaving you with “something like ‘this.’” Don’t worry if this happens. It is correct. It just means the quote within the quote ended at the same time the main quote ended. And remember, the punctuation goes inside. Note the placement of the period in the three examples below:
- Correct: this.’”
- Incorrect: this’.”
- Incorrect: this’”.