Question Marks Inside Or Outside Quotes

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.

Question marks inside or outside quotes. Put it outside if the question belongs to the writer. Another exception is if the quoted material is a full sentence and stands alone i e without a carrier expression such as he said. The same rule applies to exclamation marks and dashes. For this reason it is placed outside the quotation marks.

Some of you detail oriented okay picky people may want to know what to do when the quotation and the sentence are both questions. We had such a great time. However this is not the case for all end punctuation marks. Semicolons colons and dashes always go outside the closing quotation mark.

Sentence ending punctuation is a whole different story. In the us periods and commas are placed inside quotation marks. In the united states the rule of thumb is that commas and periods always go inside the quotation marks and colons and semicolons dashes as well go outside. However this is not always the case with exclamation points and question marks.

If the entire sentence is a question put the question mark outside the quotation marks. In the final example the question mark belongs to the carrier sentence and not the quotation. Put the question mark inside ending quotation marks if the question belongs to the quoted source. Rule the placement of question marks with quotations follows logic.

For example if the sentence is a question but the words in the quote are not the question mark would go outside the quotation marks. Periods and commas always go inside the closing quotation mark in american english. If the quoted words are a question put the question mark inside the quotation marks. There was a storm last night paul said.

Peter however didn t believe him. Inside when the question belongs to the source the committee asked rather rhetorically does this rule really apply. Question marks and exclamation points require. In summary these are the ways you combine quotation marks with other punctuation marks.

To sum up the rules on question marks. In the uk the tendency is to place them outside. In american english periods go inside quotation marks. If the quote is a question or exclamation the punctuation mark goes inside the quotation marks.

For other punctuation marks where the closing punctuation goes depends on which idea it refers to the sentence or the quote.