Do You Put The Period Inside The Quotation Marks

Quotation marks, with comma and period

According to The Chicago Manual of Style, commas and periods are almost ever placed before a closing quotation marking, "like this," rather than after, "like this". This traditional fashion has persisted even though it's no longer universally followed exterior of the U.s.a. and isn't entirely logical.

The other standard marks of judgement punctuation—semicolons, colons, question marks, exclamation points, and dashes—become before or afterwards a closing quotation mark depending on whether they vest with the quoted matter or with the surrounding text (see CMOS half-dozen.9 and vi.10).

Why are commas and periods exempt from this logic?

To acquire more, let'south examine the origins of Chicago's rule—and how it took shape in the confront of an emerging "British style" beyond the Atlantic.

Chicago 5. Oxford

If yous examine works published in English earlier 1905, you will find a well-nigh-universal placement of commas and periods before a endmost quotation marking, whether unmarried or double. This was a thing of custom, but that custom was about to modify.

As I've suggested elsewhere, Horace Hart's Rules for Compositors and Readers (published past Oxford University Press and available today as New Hart's Rules) is to British publishers as The Chicago Manual of Style is to publishers in the The states. Each got its start in the 1890s as the house style guide for a major university printing. And each was made bachelor to the public for the first time a little more than than a decade after that—1904 for Hart'due south Rules, 1906 for Chicago.

Until 1905, Oxford University Press and the Academy of Chicago Press handled quotation marks in by and large the same way, with one significant difference: Oxford used single quotation marks, reserving double quotation marks for quotes within quotes; Chicago took the reverse arroyo.

This 'unmarried'/"double" stardom continues to exist observed today.* The placement of commas and periods, however, was in flux.

"According to the Sense": Hart'due south Rules, 1904

In 1904, when Hart'due south Rules was first offered for auction to the public, it went through four editions. The final of these, published in July 1904 (as the 18th ed., or 4th for publication), suggested ane rule for commas and periods while following another:

Quotation Marks.—Single 'quotes' to be used for the kickoff quotation; then double for a quotation inside a quotation. . . . All marks of punctuation used with words in inverted commas,† or with words within parentheses, must be placed according to the sense. (p. 36)

Right, except for one crucial detail. Commas and periods in that edition of Hart's Rules weren't at all placed according to the sense, as a look through its text will show. In the following facsimile from the eighteenth edition, of a passage warning confronting the misuse of Latin plural forms, annotation the placement of the menses relative to the closing quotation marking after "Erratum" (p. 38):

Do not be guilty of the absurd mistake of printing 'Errata' as a heading for a single correction. When a list of errors has been dealt with, by printing cancel pages and otherwise, so that only one error remains, take care to alter the heading from 'Errata' to 'Erratum.' The same remarks apply to Addenda and Addendum, Corrigenda and Corrigendum.

Obviously, readers are not being advised to alter "Errata" to "Erratum."—literally—with a menstruum at the cease of the discussion. On the contrary, Hart'southward Rules was simply following the typographic convention of its 24-hour interval, while hinting elsewhere (with the phrase "placed co-ordinate to the sense") that there might exist a problem with that same convention.

This discrepancy would not survive for long. In the very side by side edition, published in July 1905, the phrase "according to the sense" would appear in italics (lest anyone miss it), and the text would be edited to follow its ain advice (equally we'll encounter in the next section):

All signs of punctuation used with words in quotation marks must be placed according to the sense. If an extract ends with a indicate, then let that bespeak exist, as a rule, included earlier the endmost quotation mark; merely not otherwise. This is an important management for the compositor to bear in mind. (p. 43)

The meaning of "indicate" here is any mark of punctuation—including commas and periods; a period in British English language is also called a total bespeak (or total stop). This is no change from the advice in the previous edition, which (every bit quoted higher up) applied to "all marks of punctuation."

But this time, Hart would brand sure that his guide was printed according to his word.

"A Bad Practice": Hart's Rules, 1905

I tin only imagine the debates leading up to the 1905 nineteenth edition of Hart'south Rules—especially relative to commas and periods with quotation marks. Any occurred, Hart was moved to add a two-page defense of the applicable rule (in the 18th ed., the advice on quotation marks had taken up all of iii sentences):

When either a comma or a full point is required at the end of a quotation, the most universal custom at the present fourth dimension is for the printer to include that comma or full point within the quotation marks at the finish of an extract, whether it forms office of the original extract or not. . . . There seems to be no reason for perpetuating a bad practice. And so, unless the writer wishes to take it otherwise, in all new works the compositor should place total points and commas co-ordinate to the examples which follow:—

We need not 'follow a multitude to exercise evil'.
No 1 should 'follow a multitude to do evil', as the Scripture says.
Do not 'follow a multitude to practice evil'; on the reverse, do what is right.

And keep in the same manner with other marks of punctuation. (pp. 44–45)

The balance, every bit they say, is history. Or was it?

"A Rule without Exception": Chicago, 1906

When the first edition of Chicago's competing guide went on auction to the public—in 1906, as Manual of Style—the quotation marks were double, and the commas and periods went inside. Then did semicolons, but not colons (the numbers refer to sections in the Manual):

113. Put the period inside the quotation marks. (This is a dominion without exception.)

123. The colon should be placed outside the quotation marks, unless a role of the quotation.

127. The semicolon is always placed inside the quotation marks.

146. The comma is always placed inside the quotation marks.

By 1910, when the second edition of the Manual was published, Chicago's editors had changed their minds near the semicolon, borrowing instead from the rule for colons:

140. The semicolon should exist placed exterior the quotation marks, unless a part of the quotation.

But why? Isn't a semicolon just a fancy hybrid, stronger than a comma but weaker than a menstruum?

"For Appearance' Sake": Chicago, 1937

The reason for Chicago's continued exception for commas and periods alone would go evident, just not until 1937, when the 10th edition of the Manual was published:

133. The catamenia is placed within the quotation marks for appearance' sake. . . .

Tennyson's "In Memoriam."
Put the period inside the quotation marks. (This is a dominion without exception.)

The rule for periods is still "a dominion without exception," as information technology was in 1906—but this time the reminder is in italics, a fleck of emphasis that echoes Hart's ain insistence in 1905 on the opposite principle. Just as interesting are those three words of explanation that precede the case: "for advent' sake."

What does that mean?

Punctuating at the Baseline

Whereas colons and semicolons rise to the level of lowercase messages (question marks and exclamation points are even taller), commas and periods hug the baseline. Quotation marks, on the other hand, bladder in the ether, aligning themselves most the tops of the capital letters.

So when a comma or a period precedes a quotation marker, it tends to appear as much below the mark as to its left, specially in the proportional typefaces used for most published works since Gutenberg and at present the default in everything from text-messaging apps to word processors.

Here'southward a screenshot from my computer. Cheers to the style sheets working in the groundwork, the text approximates the well-kerned advent of proportional fonts in modern published works:

Chicago style: This is

That's only Microsoft Word, using the default Calibri font with kerning turned on (under Font > Advanced > Character Spacing). A design professional using a programme similar Adobe InDesign would practise even better.

But notice how the commas and the period in the example of Chicago style announced consistently right next to the words they follow (test, know, life), creating a pleasing uniformity along the baseline. In British fashion, placement is interrupted by the quotation marks, though the gap is smaller than information technology would be with double rather than single marks.

Which style practise you prefer?

Fortunately, neither 1 is the very last word on the affair.

Fictional Dialogue, Where the Styles Converge

Of the two styles, Chicago is the easier 1 to employ. Neither writers nor their editors have to stop to decide in each instance whether a comma or period belongs to the quoted text or to the surrounding context. That's a real advantage in works that contain a lot of dialogue.

Take these ii sentences, for example:

This is a examination, then pay attending.
Punctuation is the central to everything.

Now turn them into dialogue:

Chicago manner:
"This is a test," he said, "then pay attending."
"Punctuation," I answered, "is the key to everything."

British style, standard:
'This is a test,' he said, 'so pay attention.'
'Punctuation', I answered, 'is the fundamental to everything.'

British style, fiction:
'This is a exam,' he said, 'and so pay attention.'
'Punctuation,' I answered, 'is the primal to everything.'

Did you lot pass the test?

You lot get some credit for noticing the single versus double quotation marks. But y'all get total credit if y'all noticed that in the second line of the "standard" British-fashion example, the first comma (the 1 after the discussion "Punctuation") follows the closing quotation marker.

If y'all didn't notice this right away, don't worry. It may exist true that the comma in the 2d sentence doesn't belong to the quoted dialogue—it has been added only to facilitate the interruption by the narrator, equally you can tell by looking at the original sentence—merely who cares?

No one does, obviously.

Then British way makes an exception for fictional dialogue, and that'due south a proficient thing. No editor wants to wade through the thousands of lines of dialogue typical of a conventionally written novel to figure out in each instance whether a comma would exist needed without the narrative interruption. Especially not if readers won't do good from that work.

Equally for periods, they pose less of a problem, at least for complete sentences. It's merely with quoted words and phrases that the distinction begins to thing—but even and so, how important is information technology?

If the Rule Doesn't Fit, Break It

Neither organization is perfect. Chicago's may be easier to use, but it sometimes results in ambiguity. When I talk about "punctuation," it'due south understood that I am not talking about the word punctuation followed past a comma. But if I were to ask you to blazon the discussion "punctuation", I might want to get in perfectly clear that you are not to type the comma also.

Exceptions similar that one are rare in well-nigh contexts, only if your text depends on that level of precision, by all means break the rule, as I simply did—and point to CMOS 7.79 to defend your choice.

* But not without exceptions. British newspapers, for example, frequently utilise double quotation marks.

† In Hart's Rules, quotation marks were likewise referred to every bit inverted commas, a term that is still used today. But note that in most modern typefaces just the opening mark is an inverted comma; the closing marker consists of a comma oriented normally. Both marks are raised in a higher place the baseline.

Editor's Corner posts at Shop Talk reflect the opinions of its authors and not necessarily those of The Chicago Transmission of Style or the University of Chicago Press.

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Russell Harper (@cpyeditor) is editor of The Chicago Manual of Fashion Online Q&A and was the principal reviser of the terminal 2 editions of The Chicago Manual of Style. He besides contributed to the revisions of the concluding two editions of Kate L. Turabian's A Transmission for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations.