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July 2001

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Subject:
From:
"Glauner, Jeff" <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 26 Jul 2001 16:31:34 -0500
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Jennifer,

That's a matter of context.  In most situations, no one will care whether
you put your quotation marks inside or outside the comma.  However, if what
you are writing is important in some professional or political sense, you
need to discover what style guide your reader expects you to follow.  For
instance, if you are writing to an organization that requires MLA style in
its publications, you should use MLA style.  In many cases, there is no way
to discover this without asking.

Two style guides are particularly authoritative for public writing tasks
where no particular guide is prescribed.  The first, the MLA, I mentioned.
The other is the APA (American Psychological Association).  They are quite
similar except to the specialist.  If you are down to figuring out which of
the two to follow in some minor point, you have probably come to the point
where it doesn't matter very much.  Then, the most important advice I can
give is to be consistent.  That is, do it the same way throughout your
document.


Jeff Glauner
Associate Professor of English
Park University, Box 1303
8700 River Park Drive
Parkville MO 64152
[log in to unmask]
http://www.park.edu/jglauner/index.htm


-----Original Message-----
From: Rabinowitz, Jennifer [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, July 26, 2001 3:06 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: A simple question?


Thank you.  Here's another question, then: what to do about conflicting
rules on usage? Which to use, and why?

-----Original Message-----
From: Glauner, Jeff [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, July 26, 2001 3:54 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: A simple question?


Some style guides disagree on this point, but the MLA (Modern Language
Association) style guide places commas inside quotation marks.

One problem in your sentence, however, is that quotation marks that occur
within other quotation marks are single instead of double symbols:  "The
sculpture, 'The Discus Thrower,' was beautiful to behold."

I'll leave the question that might arise of whether the name of an artwork
should be in italics or enclosed in quotation marks for another day.

Jeff Glauner
Associate Professor of English
Park University, Box 1303
8700 River Park Drive
Parkville MO 64152
[log in to unmask]
http://www.park.edu/jglauner/index.htm


-----Original Message-----
From: Rabinowitz, Jennifer [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, July 26, 2001 2:43 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: A simple question?


Hello one and all,

I have a question.  Is the placement of commas inside the quotation marks
correct in this sentence:  "The sculpture,"Discus Thrower," was beautiful to
behold."  That is, are commas always inside quotations?

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