Quotation Marks with Other Punctuation Marks Mini-Lesson #93a Created by Akeem Richard Writing Lab Assistant April 2012

When commas and periods are at the end of quoted material, these marks normally go inside the quotation marks (Heffernan 470). Ex: “It’s time for you to leave,” said Mimi. Ex: “Ideas,” writes Carl Jung, “spring from something greater than the personal human being.” Ex: The governor stated, “I will not seek reelection.” Commas and Periods

Commas and Periods, cont. There is an exception to the previous rule: “When a parenthetical source citation immediately follows a quotation, place any period or comma after the citation” (Fowler 413). – Ex: One critic calls the essay “outrageous” (Olms 26). – Ex: Partly because of “the cool calculation of its delivery” (Olms 27), Swift’s satire still chills a modern reader.

Semicolons and Colons Typically, semicolons and colons go outside the quotation marks (413). – Ex: A few years ago the slogan in elementary education was “learning by playing”; now educators are concerned with teaching basic skills. – Ex: We all know what is meant by “inflation”: more money buys less.

Dashes, Question Marks, and Exclamation Points “When a dash, question mark, or exclamation point is part of the quotation, put it inside quotation marks” (414). – Ex: “Go away!” I yelled. – Ex: You said, “Who is she?” “When a dash, question mark, or exclamation point applies only to the larger sentence, not to the quotation, place it outside the quotation marks” (414). – Ex: Who said, “Now cracks a noble heart”? – Ex: The woman called me “stupid”! In either case, the punctuation either inside or outside the quotation marks is all that is needed to end its sentence. No extra punctuation marks are needed.

Ellipses “Use a period and three spaced dots to show that you are omitting the end of a quoted sentence” (Heffernan 470). – Ex: Thoreau wrote: “We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn....” “The period follows the last quoted word without a space, and the fourth dot comes before the closing quotation mark. Normally you may cut off the end of a quoted sentence in this way only if what remains makes a complete sentence” (470). – If the quoted material ends with an ellipsis and is accompanied by a parenthetical citation, leave a space before, after, and between the three dots, and place a fourth dot flush to the right of the citation.

Quoting Computer Code Consider the following sentence: – Nowadays, a person typing a URL into an Internet browser’s address bar does not have to type “ Does the dot inside the quotation marks belong to the computer code, or does the dot function as the period of the sentence?

Quoting Computer Code, cont. Since periods typically go inside the quotation marks, someone may assume that the dot in question does not belong to the quoted computer code. If the dot is not a part of the code, then only the acronym for “World Wide Web” should be omitted. If this assumption is true, then “.google.com” should work. Try entering “.google.com” into an address bar and see what happens.

Quoting Computer Code, cont. Since “.google.com” is not a valid Internet address, a person should then assume that the dot in question belongs to the computer code. Try entering “google.com” into an address bar and see what happens. But if the person is an informed grammarian that lacks computer knowledge, how would that person know to treat that dot as a part of the code, instead of a period that ends the sentence?

Quoting Computer Code, cont. There is no consensus on a rule for this scenario. However, there are two ways to avoid this confusion: – Either change the font of the code to Courier, without using quotation marks. Nowadays, a person typing a URL into an internet browser’s address bar does not have to type www. Period in Courier:. Period in Times New Roman:.

Quoting Computer Code, cont. – Or place the computer code inside a figure. Nowadays, a person typing a URL into an internet browser’s address bar does not have to type the code in Figure 3. Periods are not the only troublesome characters: quotation marks, colons, and brackets are other characters that are used in computing. Using these two options can help to avoid the ambiguity. Figure 3 www.

Works Cited Fowler, H. Ramsey, Aaron, Jane, and Brittenham, Rebecca. The Little, Brown Handbook. New York: Longman, Print. Heffernan, James, and John Lincoln. Writing: A College Handbook. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Print.