Where Does the Closing Quote Mark Go?

 

One of the biggest tells that a document wasn't professionally edited (a document published in the U.S., at least) is shown in an example like this:

The word "clandestine", which came up three times in the debate, is less popular than the word "covert".

Unlike British punctuation rules, in American English a comma or period always comes before the closing quote. But question marks and exclamation points are a different story. Here's what you need to know.

 

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Tags: COPY EDITING, PUNCTUATION

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