Grammar Q: When do u place a ? or ! outside of quotation marks.. the rule is confusing?

Question

Rule:
-place ? marks and ! points inside the quotation marks if they belong to the quotation itself.

-place ? marks and ! points outside the quotation marks if they did not belong to the quotation.

Can anyone explain? Examples?

Answer 1

Did you understand when the teacher said, "Do your homework."?
The teacher asked, "Did you do your homework?".

Does that make sense?

Answer 2

place ? marks and ! points inside the quotation marks if they belong to the quotation itself.
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If the person or text you are quoting used a question mark or exclamation point, then you quote it. For example, if you're quoting Shakespeare: "Wherefore art thou Romeo?"


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-place ? marks and ! points outside the quotation marks if they did not belong to the quotation.
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If it's YOU who is using the ? and I, then you do not put them inside the quotation marks. The quo-marks, after all, are to show what the ORIGINAL source said.

Let's say that I said something stupid, like "Paris is in England." You might write:

Rage, did you really write, "Paris is in England"?

(I'm not including the full stop there, also known as a period, as not every convention does and it looks better without.....ending with ."? looks clumsy to me.)

Answer 3

ok..
say if someone asked you a question about how fat an elephant is or something.. and you wanted to quote it.. you would say diane asked "how fat an elephant is?". the question mark goes in the quotations because it was apart of the statement you are quoting.
you put a question mark outside the quotations when you have a question about what a person said. if the same person said an elephant IS fat (no question about it) then you could write.. why did diane say "the elephant is fat"?
thats the best i can explain!

Answer 4

I was always taught that all punctuation marks, that go with the quotation(that are part of the quotation itself) go inside the quotation.

I think I do understand the rule that you have just quoted. Let me just try to think of an example to help you out. Let's use the famous "four score and seven years ago" quote from Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.

Lincoln said, "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."
But:

Is it true that Lincoln said, "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal"?
And:

I can't believe that Lincoln really said, "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal"!

Hope this helps.

Answer 5

relies upon. classes continually bypass interior. comparable with commas. Colons and semi-colons continually bypass outdoors. it is because of the fact a colon or semi-colon on the top of a citation is on no account an important part of the unique citation. question marks and exclamation factors bypass interior if and on condition that they are part of the citation. while you're quoting somebody asking a question, the question mark is going interior. while you're asking a question a pair of fact somebody made, the question mark is going outdoors. This distinguishes your rationale from the rationale of the guy being quoted.

Answer 6

all punctuation goes inside the quotation marks

Answer 7

put it inside if the thing being said is a question or an exclamation

ex. "What do you want?" Shelia asked.

put it outside if the quotation isn't one but the rest of the sentence is.

ex. Did she say "I like Paul's brother"?

Answer 8

If you're quoting a person, and that person is asking a question, then the ? goes inside the quotations, b/c that question mark is theirs.

"Are you there, honey?"

Same thing if it's an exclamation point.

"Hi!"

If you're asking a question involving a quote, follow this example:

Who is the philosopher that said "ABCDEFG"?

The question mark is not part of the person's statement, it is part of your question. Since the person you're quoting did not ask a question, they don't need a question mark in their statement.

Hope that helps.

Answer 9

"Does the dog like cookies?" I asked.
[? belongs to the quotation itself]

Did I say, "The dog likes cookies"?
[? does not belong to the quotation but to my question ("Did I say..." of which the quote "The dog likes cookies" is a part]

Answer 10

The rules are correct.
The ? or ! inside mean that the exclamation or question was made by the quotee.
for instance - I heard the boy ask "was the tiger white?"

? or ! outside is referring to the quote
for instance - Did I hear the boy ask "was the tiger white"?

Answer 11

You have the rules correct. Here are examples...

Is it okay for Tom to say, "I don't like sally."?

Tom said, "Is sally really a ****?"

Hope this helped. Sorry about the **** thing. I could not think of what to type and sadly that is what came first.