Does The Question Mark Go In Quotes

Writers often omit dialogue tags when the context of a conversation makes it clear who the speaker is.

Does the question mark go in quotes. In american english the general rule for question marks and exclamation marks or points is this. As with exclamation marks a question mark goes before the closing quotation mark when it belongs to the sentence inside the quotation marks. The question mark however is part of the spoken text so it s placed inside the quotes. This rule makes sense too don t you think to sum up the rules on question marks.

Use of the question mark with other punctuation including quotation marks is explained in the section on terminal punctuation. For this reason it is placed outside the quotation marks. If the quoted material ends with a question mark or an exclamation mark the punctuation should be inside the quotation marks. If the quoted words aren t a question but the entire sentence is a question the question mark goes outside the quotation marks.

The only real exception to the rule is when a character is quoting another character and the use of single quote marks inside double quote marks come into play. However if the question mark or exclamation mark is not directly part of the quote then the punctuation should go outside the quotation marks. There is a certain common sense to this but it does make punctuating british english harder than punctuating us english. Periods and commas always go inside quotation marks.

In the fifth sentence martin is speaking but there is no dialogue tag. If the quoted words are a question put the question mark inside the quotation marks. The same rule applies to exclamation marks and dashes. Here the question is outside the quote.

Another exception is if the quoted material is a full sentence and stands alone i e without a carrier expression such as he said. According to ap style a question mark is inside quotation marks if that part is the question and outside the quotation marks if the whole sentence is a question. It s important to note that whenever the question falls inside quote marks the question mark generally falls inside the quote marks as shown in the examples above.