Comments on: The Quandary of Quotation Marks (” “)

By: Marji Yablon

Marji Yablon — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 23:58:49 +0000

Up until today, I never doubted that punctuation — any punctuation — that wasn’t part of a quote should go outside the quotation marks. After reading your post, out of curiosity, I skimmed some of my published articles. In every one of them, that little habit of mine had been corrected, so that it all agreed with the rules as you have explained them. In any back-and-forth I’d done with an editor, I had failed to notice that change — or maybe it had come later.

So, thanks. From now on, I can give them their punctuation correctly from the start. But perhaps some day, I’ll write the original version of something for a British publication. Then, I’ll be able to both BE correct and FEEL correct!

By: Joel Segel

Joel Segel — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 15:09:40 +0000

One exception to the American ruling regarding commas and periods: If the exact characters in the quote are important, as in the case of a password, then periods and commas should be left outside the quotation marks:

Example: Click on LOG IN. Enter your name for USERNAME. For PASSWORD enter “lollipop”, then click OK.

By: Anne Kelley

Anne Kelley — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 04:18:12 +0000

I’m not sure I’ve ever been informed about international differences regarding quotation mark rules — thanks for the crash course!

By: The Essay Expert

The Essay Expert — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 05:05:06 +0000

Thanks for your great comment, Pattie! Yes, to clarify, your readers’ expectations and demands always come first. If you are writing professionally in any country, find out which style guide your employer wants you to use and follow it! It is for personal correspondence or other unregulated writing that I believe the writer gets to choose.

By: Pattie Whitehouse

Pattie Whitehouse — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 04:17:26 +0000

Brenda said: “What if I’m Canadian? All bets are off (or on, as the case may be), in Canada. Do it the way you think your readers will expect you to do it. As far as I can tell, you get to choose.”

Most refer to the Canadian Press Stylebook and its companion volume, Caps and Spelling. With respect to whether commas and periods go within or outside of quotation marks, the standard in Canada is that (most of the time) they go within.

If you write for a publication, regardless of where it is based, the best idea is to check what standards that publication uses and conform to them.

In personal writing, maybe, you get to choose, but in professional writing, your client or employer is the one who gets to choose.

By: Lucy Cripps

Lucy Cripps — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 21:26:54 +0000

Thanks for this Brenda.

It’s no wonder we manage to get the rules in a muddle when you consider how great the range of sites we read from in a day.

I, for one, don’t check the origin of all the sites I visit. To make it even more confusing, we see posts on social networking sites from all over the world.

A UK reader may simply scoff and tut at a US poster’s grammar/punctuation, blissfully unaware that the US reader is doing just the same back!

We need to raise awareness of our divided language.