A question of punctuation

[stephbg]

Dear friends of editorial and writerly persuasions,

I am a professional writer of non-fiction, and an increasingly enthusiastic blogger. In my professional life, standards matter. On lj, meh, not so much. So, until now I have managed to get through life without *really* getting to grips with the punctuation of dialogue and quotation marks. Instinct guides me to two opposing rules, placing the comma inside the quote in one case, and outside in another.

Example #1: quoted term - comma outside quotes:
Comma placement is something that 'everyone knows', but it’s best to be sure.

Example #2: dialogue, incomplete sentence - comma inside quotes
"Everyone knows," she said, "where the commas should go."

I think it's about time I checked, and I'd rather do it this way than trawl my usual grammar and punctuation sources. Having said that, feel free to point out your own favourite sources. So, thoughts?

Comments

[purrdence.livejournal.com]

I always thought it was 'singles' do-hickies when quoting as in your first example, but not "quotation" marks... *ponders*

[stephbg.livejournal.com]

LOL. Got me there. I'll correct.

[angriest.livejournal.com]

"Well," said Grant, "I have a tendency to do it the latter way in my writing, but who can say for sure?"

[stephbg.livejournal.com]

But what if you're 'making a point', then pausing for effect?

[fe2h2o.livejournal.com]

That is my understanding also:-)

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

As usual, everything you need to know is in wikipedia. Short summary - both rules are valid somewhere, the second is the US English standard (and is often referred to as the typesetters rule), including the quote within only when it is part of the actual quote is the more complicated grammatical rule, which is more common in UK/Commonwealth English, but is very common in academic and technical (eg referring to computer language or URLs) uses anywhere, where it is important to know what exactly is part of the quote and what is not, and has become more common for reasons including nerds promulgating their language quirks via the internet.

[stephen-dedman.livejournal.com]

I'm asked this frequently, particularly in my Professional Writing classes. Punctuation goes inside the inverted commas for dialogue, outside it for short quotes (e.g., those less than three lines long. Unless the punctuation is an essential part of the quote.)

And when in doubt, consult Strunk & White: http://www.crockford.com/wrrrld/style.html