Re: "xxx." or "xxx".

["Sherman,Diane R" <Diane -dot- R -dot- Sherman -at- KP -dot- ORG>]

>>Five technical writers, one office, two opinions.   When a sentence ends
>>with
>>a word in quotation marks, do you put the punctuation (period or comma - we
>>agree on the other punctuation marks) inside the quotation marks or outside
>>the quotation marks?  The various guides that we checked all indicated that
>>1a and 2a (below) are correct, but some of the writers swear that they were
>>taught to follow 1b and 2b.   What do you think?
>>
>>1a.   "Tell me what you think," said Barb.
>>1b.   "Tell me what you think", said Barb.
>>
>>2a.    Each fix is moved to the restricted area by a "gatekeeper."
>>2b.    Each fix is moved to the restricted area by a "gatekeeper".
>>


>From:  Wayne Douglass[SMTP:wayned -at- VERITY -dot- COM]
>Sent:  Friday, September 19, 1997 1:04 PM
>To:    Technical Writers List; for al
>Cc:    Sherman,Diane R
>Subject:       Re: "xxx." or "xxx".

>1a & 2a are US convention; 1b & 2b are UK convention.
> --Wayne


=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=-==-=-=-=-=

yes, that's what all guides i've ever seen say.   also noticed that the
original poster and many of the 1b and 2b defenders seem to be from
british commonwealth countries.

also had a problem once like the following:

"I have had clients who due to the nature of their material wanted the
punctuation outside of the quotation marks. Their justification was that
they frequently enclosed text strings that the reader needed to type on
the computer inside of the quotation marks. Including the punctuation
inside the quotation marks confused the reader."

solved it like this:


1)  Enter (type, add, whatever) the following:

aaa bbb ccc ddd

2)  Replace "xx yy zz" with the following:

aaa bbb ccc ddd



diane sherman
diane -dot- r -dot- sherman -at- kp -dot- org

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