Writers of nonfiction sometimes incorporate quotes into their writing. Quotes, used sparingly, can be powerful—they can give your ideas the appropriate impact you’re looking for. But when you incorrectly punctuate your quotes, it creates inconsistency and disorganization that will weaken your ideas.
There are rules to remember about punctuation when using quotes. It’s not okay to place the punctuation mark wherever you want to.
In US English, periods and commas go inside quotation marks:
The writer said, “my manuscript is one hundred pages.”
There’s one exception to this rule—if you are following your sentence with a parenthetical citation, place the period after the closing parenthesis:
According to the researchers, the results were “inconclusive” (50).
But what about question marks, exclamation marks, dashes, colons, and semicolons?
These marks go inside the quotation marks if they are part of the quote:
The editor asked the writer, “How many pages is your manuscript?”
Place these marks outside the quotation marks if they don’t belong with the quote:
Did the editor say, “The manuscript is one hundred pages”?
So when you’re using quotes, be sure to place punctuation marks in the correct spot. And don’t forget to include the closing quotation marks.
