Quotes/Comma question

[Beth Agnew]

I disagree. You're talking about an "X" or a "Y". The quotation marks 
indicate a unit. Since you have a series, and you want to use 
semi-colons to separate them, the semi-colon goes between the units: 
"1"; "2"; or "3".  Style issues aside, because Americans, Canadians, 
Brits etc. have different ideas about these things, what is most 
readable for your user? My exams say "Choose A, B, C, or D for your 
answer." Since semi-colons connect ideas, I also cannot think of any 
instance where you would have a final semi-colon inside quotation marks. 
Outside, yes: "My son is always saying "I dunno"; correcting him is 
pointless."

--Beth

Beth Agnew
Professor, Technical Communication
Seneca College, Toronto

Doug Grossman wrote:
> I'm not saying that you're wrong, and I'm not saying that you're right, but this brought up an interesting question in my mind. How about the following as an example of a context where a semicolon might go inside quotation marks:
>
> Mark your answer with an "X;" a "Y;" or a "1," "2," or "3."
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: techwr-l-bounces+doug.grossman=sas.com at lists.techwr-l.com [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+doug.grossman=sas.com at lists.techwr-l.com] On Behalf Of Gene Kim-Eng
> Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2007 10:31 AM
> To: techwr-l at lists.techwr-l.com
> Subject: Re: Quotes/Comma question
>
> I don't know of any context in which a semicolon goes inside quotation marks, except perhaps if you're quoting something that actually ends with a semicolon.