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I have been/am being taught that end punctuation should always go inside quotes. For example, you are supposed to write:

Marvin thought it was "awful."

The problem is I do not see how does this make sense. Intuitively, I always wrote:

Marvin thought it was "awful".

as that makes more logical sense — you want a quote to be an exact replication of what somebody else said, so why should you add punctuation inside?

I always thought it made more sense to not touch the quote and add anything after or before if it must be added.

So, why should I put end punctuation inside quotes?

RegDwigнt
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houbysoft
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    I've already voted for ShreevatsaR's answer, as I believe it is correct. However, I would also like to mention that I was taught to use the logical convention for "tall" punctuation (definitely question mark and exclamation point, probably also colon and semicolon), which I guess is considered to look good typographically whether inside or outside (so can afford to be placed according to meaning). Note also that this applies whether the punctuation is "ending" or not (commas are typographically always inside). – John Y Dec 28 '10 at 07:35
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    You shouldn't.... the British way is as you say superior ;) – 8128 Dec 28 '10 at 09:29
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    I wonder whether this originated from the desire of printers to follow the convention of handwritten manuscripts, where a comma or period could be located below the quotation marks. – Peter Shor Mar 29 '12 at 17:02
  • What about if the quote is something like the title of an article or a song such as, "Cripple Creek"? It seems like the question mark there should not go inside of the song title "Cripple Creek" because the question mark is not a part of the song. – Lee McAlilly Mar 29 '12 at 16:24
  • Possible duplicate: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/1560/how-should-i-punctuate-around-quotes – Nikana Reklawyks Nov 07 '12 at 05:12

4 Answers4

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Firstly, this is only American convention — in Britain for instance you wouldn't use it (except for a few publishing houses). Secondly, this is not logical but typographical: a convention arising out of early American printers' opinion that typesetting the punctuation inside quotes looked better. This convention is slowly eroding in some areas and being replaced by the "logical" one… but it is still the predominant American convention. English is made up of a great many mere conventions and you can't really demand that it be logical.

ShreevatsaR
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    Well, you stole my answer, except that I would add a rant about how the convention is evil because it mangles quoted material by making the reader guess whether ending punctuation was or was not part of the quote. Grrrrrr.... – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten Dec 27 '10 at 21:00
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    @dmckee: the best way to fight this is to go ahead and use logical punctuation in things you write. I was also taught the American method, and it never made sense to me - not only does it mangle the quoted material, it also doesn't look any better in any typesetting situation I've ever met. The key is to be consistent, so you don't come off looking sloppy or ignorant. – Marthaª Dec 27 '10 at 21:29
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    I wish that my positive vote here be counted as a vote against the evil convention. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Dec 28 '10 at 04:07
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    I've seen one non-programmer wonder how anybody could think that punctuation outside of the quotation marks could look right to "anybody who's read a book" to great applause. I've only ever really seen programmers care about it. It seems to be a programmer thing to not want to mangle our string-literals. – aaronasterling Dec 28 '10 at 06:36
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    I'm a programmer, and I'm the only one I knew who cared about this (yes, I prefer the punctuation outside the quotation marks unless the punctuation is part of the content of the quote). However, there are several commenters above... are they all programmers as well? (I'm guessing not.) – John Y Dec 28 '10 at 07:30
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    Always punctuate in the way that makes sense to you, unless somebody is paying you to do it differently. – John Lawler Mar 29 '12 at 16:27
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    @aaronasterling. I think it's the other way around in my case. I've cared about punctuation for far longer than I've known anything about programming. But the fact that I'm the sort of person who cares about this sort of thing is what makes programming a good fit for me. – TRiG Mar 29 '12 at 22:24
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    Wow. I have, over the course of my life, always been chastised for putting punctuation outside the quotes. "My" way made more sense to me, and the rules stating otherwise seemed awkward. However, I always acquiesced to editors and teachers because I assumed I was alone on this. Now that I know there are others who share my misgivings about punctuation inside quotes, I feel more empowered to assert more logical punctuation. Yay for the internet, and its role in making people not alone in their beliefs! – Questioner Aug 11 '12 at 12:07
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    The 'American convention' / 'British convention' terminology is misleading. An American said 'Always punctuate in the way that makes sense to you, unless somebody is paying you to do it differently.' – Edwin Ashworth Jun 02 '14 at 21:24
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    According to grammar girl this convention in American English only applies to commas and periods. Other punctuation, such as question marks, should only appear inside the quote marks if it is part of the quote. – AndyT Jul 21 '17 at 08:27
  • @dmckee: We already mangle quoted material much more by not including the entire context. Does it really matter whether the original had a comma after the quoted words or not? You really can't distort the meaning much that way, while by selecting the right excerpt, you can often change the meaning significantly. – Peter Shor Nov 06 '17 at 12:18
  • @peterShor Of course the managing of quotes to clearly show the author's intent is an art (as is hiding and distorting the intent, I suppose), but deliberately breaking the integrity of a quotation without so much as a by-your-leave (or indeed a []) dosen't help. The above comment is a wee bit hyperbolic, of course, but this is a pet peeve of mine. – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten Nov 06 '17 at 18:21
  • I'm very surprised by the view that putting the end punctuation inside the quotes is an "American convention". I was always taught to put it inside only if the quote contained a complete sentence. And I was never corrected by anyone for putting it outside. I worked for several years with copy editors of major US publications, and they all agreed with placement of the punctuation outside the quotes. That is, of course, just my experience, but the question never came up. – Isabel Archer Jun 21 '20 at 09:35
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It makes a bit more sense if you consider quotes that contain several sentences.

He said, "This is a sentence. This is another. All sentences have their punctuation inside the quotation marks."

It does seem to make sense when using quotation marks to delimit a single word to place the punctuation outside the quotation marks.

My password is "foo.bar.".

Mark Harrison
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    Well, in that example the punctuation marks are part of the quote, so it doesn't have any bearing on what to do when they aren't. – ShreevatsaR Dec 28 '10 at 07:13
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    Yes, it helps to explain the origin of why the punctuation is inside the quotes. Traditionally if single words or phrases were emphasized, they would be underline or in an italic font, e.g. my password is foo.bar.. – Mark Harrison Dec 28 '10 at 11:15
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    So you're saying that because punctuation is put inside quotation marks when it's part of the quote (obviously), it explains why punctuation is inside quotes when it's not? Is this historically verified, or just speculation? And how does this theory explain why such a convention did not arise outside America? – ShreevatsaR Dec 29 '10 at 03:09
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According to the IEEE Style Guide (archive link here),

In American English, commas, semicolons, periods, question and exclamation marks are located within quotation marks only when a complete thought or name is cited, such as a title or full quotation. When quotation marks are used, instead of a bold or italic typeface, to highlight a word or phrase, punctuation should appear outside of the quotation marks.

While I would not call this style "common", it represents how a large publisher views the rules of "American English".

WBT
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  • Could it be made explicit what this quotation adds to what is in the previously posted contributions to this page? – jsw29 Jan 07 '20 at 16:29
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    The answer adds an authoritative source, for at least some writers who may come here with this question, possibly after having been told off by a reviewer who did not read that same style guide. It could also provide an answer to that reviewer, before they tell off the writer for being wrong. The quotation makes the answer self-contained and easier to use, as tends to be required on this site, instead of being a link-only answer to a larger document. The sentence at the end provides examples, as also seems to be required here. Apologies if you find it duplicative. – WBT Jan 07 '20 at 16:35
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For reasons that are unclear to me, the title of this question was edited from "Why should end punctuation go inside quotes?" to "When should end punctuation go inside quotes?" These are different questions, and I don't see any clear answers on this page to the second (current) one.

The rules about when to put punctuation inside or outside of quotes are fairly complex, particularly if you are using "American" or non-"logical" style. Not all punctuation marks are placed before quotations in American usage: for example, you wouldn't write

❌ Did Marvin think it was "awful?"

You should refer to a style guide for guidance on when to place a period or comma before quotation marks in American style. In a separate answer post on this site, Barrie England recommended Larry Trask's treatment of this subject, linking to a document that unfortunately is no longer available at that address. Wikipedia has some coverage of this topic in the article "Quotation marks in English".

herisson
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