What punctuation, if any, would you add to the following sentence? Exiting your host's bathroom after half an hour and saying "Don't worry; I fixed your toilet" is not an example of excellent ...

Our language needs quotation marks. Without them, we couldn't know who said what to whom or even what they meant. Unfortunately, using them can prove tricky. Quotations marks appear in both double and ...

I’ve gotten a lot of emails recently about where to put periods and commas relative to quotation marks. The notes were prompted by a recent column in which I mentioned that, in American English, a ...

What punctuation, if any, would you add to the following sentence? Exiting your host’s bathroom after half an hour and saying “Don’t worry; I fixed your toilet” is not an example of excellent ...

In a quotation it’s important to make sure you use the exact words from the original text. In most critical essays, it’s better to use shorter quotations in a precise way rather than write out very ...

It’s been standard practice in the United States to place commas and periods inside of quotation marks, notes Ben Yagoda, “but in copy-editor-free zones — the Web and emails, student papers, business ...

Ed, I am dizzy from the effect of your arguments about why “the American convention on quotation punctuation [is] seriously defective.” Let me respond along several fronts. (Like you, I will counsel ...

In a quotation it’s important to make sure you use the exact words from the original text. In most critical essays, it’s better to use shorter quotations in a precise way rather than write out very ...