Re: style questions

[Mike Pope <mikep -at- ASYMETRIX -dot- COM>]

There are two answers to your questions: what we do by convention in the US,
and what's reasonable. By convention, as enforced by the
bow-your-head-when-you-say-its-name-Chicago Manual of Style, periods and
commas go inside the quotes, regardless. Other punctuation goes outside. (As
an exercise in logic, attempt to determine the reason(s) for this rule.)

However, according to British style, and what would be reasonable when
documenting software, punctuation can/should go outside the quotes if it
does not belong to the quoted phrase, quoted when inside. Alas, no editor
I've encountered will accept this.

The possibility of users typing things in literally is very real, though
less of a problem with experienced users than with novices.

 -- Mike Pope
mikep -at- asymetrix -dot- com
 ----------
>From: TECHWR-L
>To: Multiple recipients of list TECHWR-L
>Subject: style questions
>Date: Sunday, April 24, 1994 3:51PM

>Hi,

>A friend is working on some documentation and had some questions that I
>figured someone out there would be able to answer:

>1)  If, by convention, you always include file names in quotes, what do
>you do when the file name appears at the end of a sentence...where does
>the period go?

>ex:  Take the file labeled "file name" and create a new file called
>"filename"

>I would initially say the period goes inside, but he raised the concern
>that the reader might think that the period is part of filename...

>2)  When a filename ends in a period and is at the end of a sentence, do
>you add the period for punctuation?  Or, would you just rewrite the
>sentence?

>Thanks for your help
>Beth