I need to put a quote in my research paper. My friends give me different answers so I'm confused now...

Would it be

According to "Title", "blah blah blah."


According to "Title," "blah blah blah."


Depends on the context. Imagine the sentence doesn't have quotes:

According to Fred, astrophysics is a rapidly growing field.

You can substitute "Fred" for anything, including some title. Note that the comma would be where it is, regardless of what you substitute for the word Fred. The comma is not part of the title, so the comma does not belong inside the quote. Therefore in this context you put the comma after the quote, like so:

According to "Astrophysics: Growing Rapidly", astrophysics is a rapidly growing field.

You typically only put the punctuation inside the quotes if you are writing dialogue or if you are quoting a sentence that includes punctuation.

"According to Fred," said Bob, "astrophysics is a rapidly growing field."

  • Depends rather more on the style guide you're following. And there are regionally observable preferences. So what you state as 'rules' are really choices. (Though I'd do it the way you do here, as it follows logic.) – Edwin Ashworth Feb 11 '14 at 7:29
  • I disagree. If you put the comma inside the quote marks, then the title of the book is implied to be Fred,. I find the APA/MLA manuals of style to be more about consistency than actually ensuring they're using the language correctly. In some cases there is ambiguity, and there are regional variations but I don't believe that this is one of those cases :) – nathanvy Feb 11 '14 at 9:21
  • 2
    Have you read the advice given in Noah's links? Your choices are more logical, and are the ones I'd use, and are given in some style guides, but your/my personal opinion does not determine acceptableness. I don't see how you can 'disagree' with my statement that accepted practice decrees that your 'rules' are not universally accepted. – Edwin Ashworth Feb 11 '14 at 9:28
  • Noah's first link was trash. It states that you ALWAYS put periods and commas inside quote marks. This is patently false. I didn't bother to click on the 2nd link. As for disagreement, context is key when reading those style manuals. A lot of times their rules only cover specific kinds of citations or quotations. – nathanvy Feb 11 '14 at 9:32
  • You realise that you're setting yourself up as some sort of punctuation czar? It won't stop me punctuating the way you do round quotes, but it does make me very wary of accepting anything you say. – Edwin Ashworth Feb 11 '14 at 9:35

In American English, according to most style manuals, punctuation marks are placed inside of the quotes. For more information see here and here.
