Punctuation outside quotations

Post Reply New Topic

Is this a new MLA style? Or is this more like a generational quirk?

I was taught that proper grammar places all closing punctuation inside the closing quotation marks.

But lately I've seen an increase in placing the ending punctuation outside of the closing quotation marks.

For example:

I was taught "this."

But now I see "this".

Did I miss something? This is bothering me more than it should

What I've always done:

"Quoting non-speech text."

"'Quoting speech text.'"

'Speech text.'

Maybe right. Maybe wrong. I dunno.

I was taught to put the period (full stop) outside the quotation mark. I thought that's been the correct way all the time.

My friend said, "coffee causes cancer". <-- correct
My friend said, "frozen vegetables cause cancer." <-- incorrect

Could it be a difference between Pennsylvania and Queensland?

Edit: added a missing word

I agree with this. The period marks the end of what you're saying. Not the end of what you said your friend said. So it goes outside the quotation mark.

https://www.grammarly.com/blog/quotation-marks/

That’s basically how I do it.

More advice and examples:



https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writ ... rules.html

Last edited by TwilightPrincess on 27 Aug 2022, 7:14 am, edited 3 times in total.

I think people get confused since some punctuation should go outside of quotation marks some of the time.

Ultimately, it’s not a big deal. It normally wouldn’t hamper one’s ability to understand.

If you call it a full stop then you're from outside North America. I recall recently reading that the standard differs between NA and elsewhere. There may be more confusion nowadays because if you browse the web in English you are likely to encounter content from all over the Anglosphere and it's not necessarily labeled as to where it originated i.e. what orthography standard the author's copy of Word was set to. Being exposed to examples of multiple standards could confuse some people who might not necessarily know all the peculiarities of their local version of English.

It’s true that there are differences based on country.

https://www.unr.edu/writing-speaking-ce ... an-english

It really only matters if one is writing an academic paper. Usually, professors expect students to follow the conventions of their country, with understanding being shown to foreign students.

People who are unfamiliar with the standards of other locales could view these differences as errors, though, so it could be a good idea to follow local conventions. Obviously, this is not applicable to online discussions.

I put the period inside the quotations.

I though some folk blamed it on us computer folk. Typically a computer will expect the quotes to contain only the quote (or, in computer terms, only contain the character string in question). If something not part of the character string gets moved in from outside the quotation marks then, as far as the computer is concerned, is becomes part of the character string.

This too.