Health & Fitness
Grammar Check: Quotation Marks with Colons, Semicolons, and Dashes
Where to place colons, semicolons, and dashes in relation to closing quotation marks
Should you put punctuation inside or outside closing quotation marks? In my previous post I discussed commas and periods. Today I will discuss colons, semicolons, and dashes.
The rule, in American English, is the opposite of the rule for commas and periods. Colons, semicolons, and dashes always go outside closing quotation marks. For example:
Every year I reread “The Great Gatsby”; it is one of my favorite books.
Every year I reread “The Great Gatsby” — I can’t get enough of that book!
“The Great Gatsby”: one of the greatest books of all time
Once again, the rule is solid: Always place colons, semicolons, and dashes outside closing quotation marks regardless of where the quotation falls in the sentence.
Exclamation points and question marks follow different rules; they are context dependent. I will cover those in my next post.
