Punctuating Quotations Correctly
I. When Quoting Directly from the Text
Inside Your Own Sentences (Without Parenthetical Citations of
Author, Year, & Page)
A. Commas and periods must
be included inside the quotation marks, that is, before
closing the quotation marks.
Examples: Connie's sister, June,
who is "twenty-four and still live[s] at home,"
is a
thorn in Connie's side.
Obviously, Connie does not have a loving
relationship with her mother: "'She makes me want to
throw up sometimes,' she complained to her friends."
B. Semicolons and colons
are always placed outside the quotation marks, that
is, after closing the quotation marks.
Example: Flannery O'Connor's "Good
Country People": The Two Faces of Hulga
(Ditto for semicolons; they go outside the quotation marks)
C. Question marks and exclamation
points belong inside the quotation marks
if the quotation itself is a question or an exclamation and
outside the quotation marks if the quotation is part of a sentence
that is a question or an exclamation.
Examples: "Stop gawking
at yourself. Who are you? You think you're so pretty?"
He shouted, "You're fired!"
Why does Connie's mother insist that
her daughter's "mind was all filled with trashy daydreams"?
II. When Quoting Directly from the Text
Inside Your Own Sentences and Citing Author, Year, & Page
in Parenthesis (APA style)
A. When citations of author and page
are included in parenthesis after the
quotation, commas and periods are placed after
the parenthesis only, that is,
outside the closed parenthesis.
Examples: Connie's sister, June,
who is "twenty-four and still live[s] at home"
(Oates, 1966, p. 438), is a thorn in Connie's side.
Obviously, Connie does not have a loving
relationship with her mother: "'She makes me want to
throw up sometimes,' she complained to her friends" (Oates,
1966, p. 438).
B. On the other hand, question marks
and exclamation points should never be
placed outside a closed parenthesis because they look awkward.
"Stop gawking at yourself. Who
are you? You think you're so pretty?"
(Oates, 1966, p. 438).
C. However, if the case arises, do
place semicolons and colons outside the closed
parenthesis.
Example: "She couldn't
decide if she liked him or if he was just a jerk"
(Oates, 1966, p. 441); at least this is what Connie thinks.
The same goes for colons.
III. For Set-Off or Blocked Quotations
Followed by Parenthetical Citations.
Rule: When you quote more than four lines of the
original text, the quotations
must be blocked or set-off (you indent the entire quotation
and do not use
quotation marks unless they appear in the original). The punctuation
comes wherever it appears in the text, that is, before the parenthetical
citation of author, year, and page.
Example:
To Connie's mother, June is obviously
the favorite daughter:
Connie had to hear her praised all the time by her mother and
her mother's sisters.
June did this, June did that, she saved money and helped clean
the house and
cooked and Connie couldn't do a thing, her mind was all filled
with trashy
daydreams. (Oates, 1966, p. 438)
Note: Remember that everything
in your paper must be double spaced, and that goes for blocked
quotations as well. Please do not put periods in two places. Follow
the above rules religiously. In the above examples, I highlighted
the places in which the quotations are punctuated. Again,
all the above examples deal only with matters of form, with how
to punctuate, and not with how to handle evidence.