Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Quick & Easy Rule for Punctuation in Quotes

Simple as this:
In American English, punctuation points like commas and periods always go inside the quotation marks.
Example:
She said,"I want to go home."

So where does a question mark go? Depends.
Example one:
Did you see the movie "What's New, Pussycat?"
Question mark is INSIDE the quote because it is part of the title of the play.
Example two:
Are you reading Shakespeare's "Hamlet"?
Question mark is OUTSIDE because you're asking a question about a play that DOESN'T have a question in its title.

Confusing?
Who said English is logical? You could have studied French! Or Spanish where a question mark goes at both ends of the sentence but upside down at the beginning.

3 comments:

Hamda said...

Thanks for explaining Dr. J.

Queena Mai said...

gr8 ,. I'll put this into consideration ..


:D

Ahlam F said...

mmm punctuation makes a huge difference in the meaning.
Thanks for make it clear