• Do commas go inside or outside of quotation marks?

• What about question marks?

• Colons? Semicolons?

• Those pesky dashes and exclamation points?

Take a moment to think of soothing music. In a symphony orchestra, some instruments, like second violins and bass violins, are workhorses. They do their jobs and follow the rules. But some all-stars take the spotlight. Oboes sound that pivotal “A” for tuning. Trumpets announce themselves. Ta-da!

The same goes for punctuation marks when used with quotation marks. Some are steady. Some are splashy.

First, we’ll share a grammar rarity: some always rules for periods, commas, colons, and semicolons.

Second, sound the trumpets! Think of question marks, exclamation points, and dashes as the prima donnas. They get special privileges. There’s no always with them.

Here are three cool “Inside/Outside” rules for remembering how punctuation works with quotation marks.

1. Periods and commas always go inside quotation marks.

Robert Frost wrote the poem “The Road Not Taken.”

Amy’s airy office, “the treehouse,” was her writing sanctuary.

2. Colons and semicolons always go outside quotation marks.

Morris Munon was “FTA”: That’s “failure to appear” in bounty-hunter lingo. (Hot Six, Janet Evanovich)

The trek through the Amazon was billed as a “pleasure trip”; it was more like an endurance test.

3. Question marks, exclamation points, and dashes . . .

Drum roll! Here come the prima donnas! Where you put these marks depends on what you are trying to say.

?       !        —       When they go inside the quotation marks

These three marks go inside quotation marks when they refer only to the quoted sentence or question.

Pete Seeger wrote the antiwar song “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”

Beatrix shouted at the rude giant, “You must not eat the finest cow in the land!” (Rude Giants, Audrey Wood)

“Call security! The gorilla has escap—” yelled the zookeeper.

?       !        —       When they go outside the quotation marks

 These three marks go outside the quotation mark when they refer to the entire sentence.

Who said, “Nothing ventured nothing gained”?   (Answer: Dates back to 1374, Chaucer)

Rodrigo can’t possibly compete with “Mr. Music”!

“I’ll never be caught”—a crook’s famous last words.

So, if you’re ever in a quandary about punctuation with quotation marks, just head back to the dulcet tones of the “Inside/Outside Rules.” Periods and commas: always inside. Colons and semicolons: always outside. With the prima donnas, ta-da!—question marks, exclamation points, and dashes—ask yourself whether they refer to part of the sentence or the whole sentence.

Any Quotation Mark Questions?

You’ll find much more on quotation marks in our two Nitty-Gritty Grammar guides. Are any other quotation mark quandaries plaguing you? Let us know. Other people might have the same questions, and we love hearing from you.

Thanks to computers, we can now italicize with a keystroke. But that doesn’t solve this dilemma: When to italicize words and when to use quotation marks?

Is it “Harry Potter” or Harry Potter? “Sixty Minutes”or Sixty Minutes? “Madame Butterfly” or Madame Butterfly?

Let’s face it. Sometimes you just have to memorize the rules. If memorization isn’t your forte (and yes, we still say “fort,” but dink around on the Internet: the two-syllable “for-tay” is on the rise and no longer considered incorrect), we suggest consulting your favorite grammar book. Might we suggest our Nitty-Gritty Grammar  or More Nitty-Gritty Grammar. (True confession: We both keep these grammar guides handy, especially for rules surrounding today’s topic.)

One friend, now a retired middle school English teacher, used this trick to help her students. She told them to think about this in terms of big pieces or little pieces. Big = italics. Small = quotation marks.

Check out these specifics:

Italics

First, some of the easier-to-remember uses of italics. Use italics:

• for scientific names: Tyrannosaurus rex

• for emphasis: “The will, as only Maxwell knew, made him the sole heir to their parents’ fortune.”

• for screen play directions, to show how a character should speak a line: Kermit (innocently): “It’s not that easy being green”

• for words from other languages: bon ami, piéce de la resistance, c’est magnifique, mea culpa, c’est fini, feng shui, E pluribus unum, Hasta mañana, baby!

Tip: Some foreign words (shish kebab, en masse, cafe latte, and maven) have been used so often that they are no longer italicized.

More Italics Tips

Titles

Titles are trickier. Use italics when writing these titles:

Magazines: Vanity Fair

Journals:  The California Reader

Newspapers:  The New York Times

Books: Cutting for Stone (Abraham Verghese)

Long poems:  Evangeline (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

Movies:  The Help (Kathryn Stockett)

Plays:  Two Pianos, Four Hands  (Ted Dykstra and Richard Greenblatt)

Radio shows/Series    Downton Abbey

TV shows/series :  The Big Bang Theory

Cartoon strips:  Zits (Jef Mallet)

Cartoon shows: Cyberchase

Musical works:  1812 Overture (Tchaikovsky)

Artistic works:  Mona Lisa (Leonardo da Vinci)

CDs and DVDs:  Red (Taylor Swift)

Names of ships:  Grand Princess, Air Force One

Spacecraft: Curiosity

QUOTATION MARKS

Quotation marks (“  ”) aren’t just for enclosing spoken words (more on that in a future column). Use quotation marks for titles such as these, and don’t let the combination of quotation marks and italics throw you:

Short poems:    “On the Pulse of Morning” (Maya Angelou)

Songs:    “Bring Him Home” (Les Miserables)

Stories:   “Three Billy Goats Gruff”

Short stories:  “Teaching Luther to Cook”

(Mama Makes Up Her Mind, Bailey White)

Articles:     “FDA Probing Energy Drink Deaths”

(Los Angeles Times)

Chapters of books:  “The House of Fear”

(Kidnapped, Robert Louis Stevenson)

Short musical compositions: “Adagio for Strings” (Samuel Barber)

Individual radio/TV show episodes: “The Portwen Effect” (Doc Martin)

• To set off individual words or phrases.

George Herman “Babe” Ruth was the Sultan of Swat.

Tip: Ruth’s nickname is in quotes, but his title as Sultan of Swat is capitalized and not in quotation marks.

• To enclose direct quotations and dialogue.

Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” begins “Twas brillig and the slithy toves / Did gyre and gimble in the wabe . . .”

There you have it. We hope we’ve refreshed some of the rules on this sometimes confusing topic. We’d love to know if you have a cool mnemonic for remembering all of this. Send it and we’ll share . . .

For more on quotation marks, watch for a future column on the “Inside-Outside Rules.”

À bientôt from the Grammar Patrol!

 Please Share

There you have it. We hope we’ve refreshed some of the rules on this sometimes confusing topic. We’d love to know if you have a cool mnemonic for remembering all of this. Just post below.

Writing with word processing software gives you more options than the old days of typewriters, but it also gives you gives you more ways to get into trouble. Most of us have twigged to the difference between the typewriter’s straight quotation marks and computer-generated curly ones. You’ll often hear the latter called curly quotes or smart quotes. If Honest Abe is reciting the Gettysburg address, the curly quotation that marks the beginning of his speech, should face the words—they’ll resemble the number 66: “Four score and seven years ago . . .” At the end of his speech, the marks form a 99: “shall not perish from the earth.”

The same goes for single quotes, but they’re like the numerals 6 and 9: “I’ll call you ‘Wart-Nose’ if I like,” yelled Dorothy at the Wicked Witch.

Do use straight quotes (‘ or “), not curly quotes, to indicate feet and inches:  42′ 9″.  (Note that the period goes outside because the quotation mark indicates inches, not a direct quotation.)

Details, details, details . . .

Ellipses: “Wait. What was I saying . . .?”

Those three dots that can indicate your brain’s gone on vacation are called an ellipsis. Handily, the word is from the Greek word meaning “omission.”

TIP: For spacing and punctuation with ellipses, treat ellipses as word substitutes. Punctuate and space ellipses as you would actual words.

Forming ellipses (yep, that’s the plural):

• Form an ellipsis with three dots: . . .

• Put spaces between the dots. Like this: . . . Not this: … (Incorrect, autocorrect!)

Tips on ellipses:

• Use an ellipsis as a placeholder for words omitted from a quoted sentence.

Luis Urrea’s Into the Beautiful North begins, “The bandidos came to the village at the worst possible time. Of course, everyone in Mexico would agree that there is no particularly good time for bad men to come to town.”

To shorten that hook of an opener, use an ellipsis:

“The bandidos came to the village at the worst possible time. Of course, . . . there is no particularly good time for bad men to come to town.”

The deletion doesn’t change the meaning, just the length.

• This deletion is a cheat:

Movie review: “Wow. The 21st century may never see a more stupid comedy than this one.”

Ad copy: “Wow. 21^st century . . . comedy.”

Note the space before and after the ellipsis.

• Here, the ellipsis indicates pauses, hesitation, or words trailing off:

“No, I’m . . .,” the Cheshire Cat yawned.

• If a sentence ends where the omission begins, keep the period, then put the ellipsis—a total of four dots:

“Wilbur never forgot Charlotte. . . . It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.”

• Other examples:

“How doth the little busy bee . . .?” begins Lizzie’s favorite poem.

Snoopy’s stories always begin, “It was a dark and stormy . . .”

• Don’t begin an indented quoted passage with ellipses.

“Wow. How cool is . . .?” said the speechless Grammar Patrol upon learning that their Armando and the Blue Tarp School children’s book has been named a companion book to Luis Urrea’s Into the Beautiful North by One Book, One San Diego 2012!

What tricks have you found for when your curly quotes go in the wrong direction? Let us know. And remember to send in great bloopers you see and hear. We’re collecting more and will post soon.