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The 7th Edition, published in 2007, stipulates that the use of periods, question marks, and exclamation points as "terminal punctuation" to end a sentence should be followed by a single space. [28] Until the early 2000s, the Modern Language Association (MLA) left room for its adherents to single or double sentence space. In 2008, it modified ...
If the quoted sentence is followed by a clause that should be preceded by a comma, omit the full stop (period), and do not replace it with a comma inside the quotation. [p] Other terminal punctuation, such as a question mark or exclamation mark, may be retained. Livingston then said, "It is done", and turned to the people.
The serial comma (for example the comma before and in "ham, chips, and eggs") is optional; be sensitive to possible ambiguity arising from thoughtless use or thoughtless avoidance, and be consistent within a given article. Avoid comma splices. Picture captions should not end in a full stop (a period) unless they are complete sentences.
(The full stop (period) is not part of the quotation.) The aesthetic style, which is only really now used in North America, [citation needed] was developed as early typesetters thought it was more aesthetically pleasing to present punctuation that way. In the aesthetic style, the punctuation goes within the quotation marks: For example:
The stylebook indicates that if the shortened sentence before the mark can stand as a sentence, it should do so, with an ellipsis placed after the period or other ending punctuation. When material is omitted at the end of a paragraph and also immediately following it, an ellipsis goes both at the end of that paragraph and at the beginning of ...
The difference between an Oxford comma and a regular comma is that an Oxford comma refers to the final comma in a series that would come before the last conjunction of a sentence.
Punctuation in the English language helps the reader to understand a sentence through visual means other than just the letters of the alphabet. [1] English punctuation has two complementary aspects: phonological punctuation, linked to how the sentence can be read aloud, particularly to pausing; [2] and grammatical punctuation, linked to the structure of the sentence. [3]
Sorry for the late response. As I said in my reply above, commas and periods precede closing quotation marks in American-style punctuation. Other marks adhere to British style. Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed., 6.8: Periods and commas. Periods and commas precede closing quotation marks, whether double or single.