Hey guys! I was wondering if you could tell me if in dialogue, does ALL punctuation go INSIDE the quotes all the time?. If you could respond back I'd greatly appreciate. Thanks and have a great day!
I hate to disagree with mamma, but I think the answer, actually, is in general yes, but there are a couple things that break the rule. For instance: "Of course!," he said. "What did you think I would do?" But, "Of course''—eyebrows shot up around the room—"what did you think I would do?" (not the best example, but I can't think of a better one right now. You'd be better using an exclamation point here inside the quote, but this example is just to show that an emdash used in place of a comma goes outside the closing quote mark, and then before the next opening quote mark. Notice also that there's no space between the last letter of the word, the quote, the emdash, and the first letter of the first word outside the quote, then reversed before the opening quote. When you have quotes within quotes in dialogue, it just depends: "I told you! He specifically said, 'No, that was not at all what I thought.'" But, "Didn't I already tell you that he answered, 'No, that was not at all what I thought'?" (again, not the best dialogue example, but it's just there for the punctuation). ______ Other than that, I think the answer is yes every time in dialogue.
