As term-end essays soon come due, your English tutor mentions a couple of finer details….

When quotation marks enclose speech, you put the comma or period inside:

“Call them back,” he requested.

“I’ll never make that mistake again.”

You also put the other punctuation inside, if it is part of what’s said:

“I love your car!”

“When will I get to drive it?”

What about if you have quotes around a title or saying?  For periods and commas, you do the same:

When my daughter told me my car was “sick,” I didn’t realize she was complimenting it.

Reading Amy Tan’s “Rules of the Game,” I developed a new appreciation for the importance of rules.

Tonight she will finish James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues.”

Note, however, that other punctuation (that is not part of the saying or title) goes outside:

Tonight, will you finish “Sonny’s Blues”?

I just found out my car is “sick”!

Quotes are used around the titles above because they are short stories; if they were novels, they would be underlined or italicized.

We wish you the best of luck with all your term-end efforts:)

Source:  TRU Open Learning Writer’s Style Guide.  Open Learning Agency, 2003.

Jack of Oracle Tutoring by Jack and Diane, Campbell River, BC.