Quote Marks - Before or After Punctuation?

American style calls for all punctuation to be inside of quote marks. British style is the reverse.

American: He said, "I went for a walk."

British: He said, "I went for a walk".

Either style is acceptable. The goal is to not mix styles in the same essay or publication. Choose a style and stick with it. When you are proofing, do a Find for the style you are not using to be certain it was not used by mistake or typo.

Find for the style you chose not to use and Replace it with the style you are using.

The above example shows Finding for double quote mark followed by period and Replacing with period followed by quote which would change any occurrences of the British style to the American style.

Do similar Find and Replaces for double quote mark followed by comma.

Also do similar Find and Replaces for single quote marks. These two Finds will expose the most common variations of quote placements.

You can find more information about American and British styles at these links.

Wikipedia: Quotation marks in English

The Punctuation Guide

You can find a practice file here.

Anything not clear? Please let us know.