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In non-fiction, some British publishers may permit placing punctuation that is not part of the person's speech inside the quotation marks but prefer that it be placed outside. [29] Periods and commas that are part of the person's speech are permitted inside the quotation marks regardless of whether the material is fiction. [29]
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.
Various observations: The comma and period inside the quotes "look better" only when true typography is used to place the quote over the punctuation, so that's not really an argument for doing it. My arguments for doing it come from Chicago and many other American style guides, but most acknowledge the historic reasons for the punctuation order.
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.
For example, "Stop!" has the punctuation inside the quotation marks because the word "stop" is said with emphasis. However, when using "scare quotes", the comma goes outside. Other examples: Arthur said the situation was "deplorable". (The full stop (period) is not part of the quotation.)
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Place a full stop (a period) or a comma before a closing quotation mark if it belongs as part of the quoted material; otherwise put it after: The word carefree means "happy". But: She said, "I'm feeling carefree. " (Please do so irrespective of any rules associated with the variety of English in use.) read more ...