Punctuation Before Quotes Uk

Punctuation english grammar today a reference to written and spoken english grammar and usage cambridge dictionary.

Punctuation before quotes uk. Usually they appear as a separate paragraph or series of paragraphs with a different font a change in the line spacing or a wider margin. American usage has always preferred double. Block quotes are long quotes that are separated from the surrounding text. In any case block quotes don t need quotation marks to set them off from the remaining text even though they are direct quotes.

British style more sensibly places unquoted periods and commas outside the quotation marks. More about the punctuation before quotation using nothing before a quotation. For all other punctuation the british and american styles are in agreement. In the us periods and commas are placed inside quotation marks.

Most writers in the uk would place the comma outside the quotation. First there is nothing very logical about it. Quotes without a colon end with the quotation mark inside the full stop like this. This is a hotly discussed topic among grammarians.

The best advice is to adopt whatever practice your national newspapers follow read more about punctuation inside or outside quotation marks. Unless the punctuation is part of the quoted material it goes outside the quotation marks. American and british quotation marks kalsangdorjee on october 05 2007 2 12 pm. All take periods in american english.

In the uk the tendency is to place them outside. Mr mrs and ms. In short when deciding what punctuation to use when introducing a quotation follow the rules we just described and then use your best judgement. Calvin spealman on october 05 2007 8 10 pm.

It has been observed by others that technical writing has migrated to punctuation outside the quotes in order to stay consistant with places were we cannot be ambiguous with the quoted content. Single quotes and double quotes as a general rule british usage has in the past usually preferred single quotes for ordinary use but double quotes are now increasingly common. The use of quotation marks also called inverted commas is very slightly complicated by the fact that there are two types. Larry trask university of sussex.

What is the active. Quotation marks and direct quotations. 25 responses to punctuation errors. Why learn to punctuate.

So that s your tip for today. Colons and semicolons are placed outside quotations while question marks and exclamation marks follow the logic of the sentence. The debate about logical punctuation suggests two things.