Should Question Mark Be Inside Quotes

In the uk the tendency is to place them outside.

Should question mark be inside quotes. In the u s periods and commas always go inside the quotation marks. Periods and commas always go inside quotation marks. Rule the placement of question marks with quotations follows logic. If the quoted material ends with a question mark or an exclamation mark the punctuation should be inside the quotation marks.

If a question is in quotation marks the question mark should be placed inside the quotation marks. If the quoted words are a question put the question mark inside the quotation marks. If the entire sentence is a question put the question mark outside the quotation marks. How to punctuate quotations with question marks.

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. In american english periods go inside quotation marks. In american english the general rule for question marks and exclamation marks or points is this. Colons and semicolons are placed outside quotations while question marks and exclamation marks follow the logic of the sentence.

There is a certain common sense to this but it does make punctuating british english harder than punctuating us english. In all varieties of english semicolons and colons go outside the quotation marks. However if the question mark or exclamation mark is not directly part of the quote then the punctuation should go outside the quotation marks. In the u k periods and commas go inside the quotation marks only for a complete quoted sentence.

If the question mark or exclamation point is part of your quotation it stays inside. The same rule applies to exclamation marks and dashes. However this is not always the case with exclamation points and question marks. In the next examples the terminal punctuation is part of the quotation so it stays inside the final quotation mark.

But if the question mark or exclamation point are not part of the quotation they go outside the closing quotation mark. If the quote is a question or exclamation the punctuation mark goes inside the quotation marks. Otherwise they go outside. The question mark however is part of the spoken text so it s placed inside the quotes.

In contrast with the examples above when the question mark is part of a title of work a syntactically necessary comma is retained.