Question Mark In Quotes Followed By Comma

However if the quote is a question a question mark needs to be used to show the reader that the sentence is an interrogative sentence.

Question mark in quotes followed by comma. In a sentence with an interrupted quotation the comma is inside the quotation marks for the first half of a quotation. The adjacent comma which is not part of the title is not italicized. Rule the placement of question marks with quotations follows logic. The comma would go outside the quotation marks for bre the comma is still necessary in this case because the question mark is not replacing it.

How many days until christmas. In the uk the tendency is to place them outside. Merry christmas squiggly said. Answer yes the comma goes inside the quotation marks and after the question mark because the question mark is part of the periodical s title.

Some of you detail oriented okay picky people may want to know what to do when the quotation and the sentence are both questions. This page has examples showing the different conventions for placing punctuation inside or outside quotation marks. She asked will you still be my friend do you agree with the saying all s fair in love and war. Colons and semicolons are placed outside quotations while question marks and exclamation marks follow the logic of the sentence.

Omit the comma before an attribution although it s not exactly the same situation the ap stylebook says that when you d put a comma at the end of a quotation before the attribution but the quotation ends in a question mark you should omit the comma. In a sentence with an interrupted quotation the speaker tag is followed by a comma before the quotation marks. Time for some more dumb rules for interrupted quotations. The question mark that ends the example sentence below is not part of the title of the cited movie so it is not italicized even though the movie title is.

Note in the first example below that when the question mark is part of the title of a work that is set in italics as it is in the cited novel the question mark is italicized. If the entire sentence is a question put the question mark outside the quotation marks. If the quoted words are a question put the question mark inside the quotation marks. For more about using italics with titles of works see here.

At the end of a sentence the exclamation point is a mark of terminal punctuation. If a question is in quotation marks the question mark should be placed inside the quotation marks. Some writers will use both a question mark and exclamation point for an exclamatory question but only the exclamation point is truly necessary. In english we typically use a comma to separate a quotation from an attributive tag a tag that tells the reader who is speaking or acting e g he thought or said he even if the quote would usually end in a period.

Comma after question mark. In the us periods and commas are placed inside quotation marks.