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

[fe2h2o.livejournal.com]

That is my understanding also:-)