Grammar question regarding quotation marks.

1.

This is a difference between U.S. and U.K. style for the most part. 1 being U.S. and 2 being U.K.

I’m assuming you’re in the U.S. and are asking whether it’s fine to place a comma within the quotation marks even though it’s not part of the song title. The answer is: Yes, that’s how you do it. The same with the period.

The important thing is to be consistent. You wouldn’t write: “Born to Run,” “Magic,” and “Dancing in the Dark”.

The first is correct.

It depends on location – UK vs US. I prefer the UK way, but then everything else I tend to do US (which, if I knew how to do UK, I would…).

All commas and periods should be placed inside the quotation marks.
All colons and semicolons should be placed outside the quotation marks.
Question marks and exclamation marks should be placed within the quotation marks when they apply only to the quoted material; they should be placed outside when the entire sentence, including the quoted material, is a question or exclamation

If you’re writing for publication, then your editor and the editor’s style sheet will guide you. If you’re writing for yourself, then you can develop your own style. I generally use the first method, enclosing the punctuation within the quote marks, but I’m not overly rigorous about it.

In the USA, the first is correct. In the UK, the second is correct.

For my own style, I prefer the UK appraoch as it is consistent with how one would handle question marks that apply to the quote or to the entire sentence that the quote happens to end. But definitely consult the style sheet when writing for publication. Your editor can tell you what book of style they follow.

I usually format using the second example because in the first one, it gives me the impression that the comma is part of the song title, instead of functioning to separate one song title from the other.

Brian1946 – that’s exactly what I was thinking. Does the general rule apply to song titles as well?

None of the above,

in the U. S., titles are underlined, not put in quotes.

Quotes are used for statements, i.e. Sally said “I recommend…...”

@HungryGuy @absalom Do either of you know the other differences between the US and the UK in terms of grammar? Like @Brian1946 said, it gives the impression that it’s part of the quotation instead of the sentence at large.

@DrBill

Not correct though. Titles of books and albums (for instance) are underlined or italicized, but titles of individual songs, individual TV episodes, essays, book chapters, most poems, and so on – all put in quotation marks.

@ktg

The general rule (of the first example) still applies. As others have said, though, if you’re writing for yourself then it’s up to you to do what feels comfortable. I switch back and forth all the time on Fluther because I can’t make up my mind re: which looks better. But in academic essays I adhere to your first example, i.e. comma-inside-the-quotation-marks approach.

@papayalily

I don’t know offhand the other grammatical differences, no.

Edit: Actually, on second thought, U.K. writing tends to feature single ( ’ ) quotation marks (like I use around the site if anyone ever pays attention to that kind of thing).

Second edit: This site also notes that U.K. grammar tends to treat collective nouns (like ‘family’ or ‘band’) as plural whereas in America they’re treated as singular. If you think about it, these are differences you can frequently notice on Wikipedia since the grammar hasn’t been totally standardized there. In this case I’m personally very American and treat collective nouns as singular. Seems weird to me to say, ‘My family are…’

In the U.S., the first option is correct.

When referring to the entire book, CD or album; the title is italicized. Chapters, poems and individual songs are put inside quotation marks.

1 is indisputably the American orthodox way to do it, but 2 seems to be gaining some steam informally.

(Also, not to be anal about citations, but IIRC with some methods you underline the title and put the publisher in italics. But this applies to bibliography, not inline references.)

My favorite English professor marked me off for having the punctuation inside the quotation marks when it came to titles. His specialty is 19th century British lit.

@absalom Wow, that’s a truly fantastic website. Thanks!

I didn’t realize that example #1 was correct according to US standards. I guess, like certain word spellings, Canada follows the UK in this case, because I would definitely go with #2, because the final period is not part of what is being quoted (i.e. the song title). If the song title itself ended with a punctuation mark, like the song “Do You Realize??” by the Flaming Lips, here’s how I’d use it in @ktg‘s example:
I recommend “Born to Run”, “Magic” and “Do You Realize??”.

@Seelix – so it seems that the comma/period outside the quotes doesn’t apply if what’s being quoted is a song title. For instance – He likes the song “Magic”.
But it does apply if it isn’t a title. For instance – He said, “Ok.”

But you can’t put italics, bold, underline, etc. in a manuscript. The convention is to underline any phrase that you want italicized if it’s important to you. So if you underline a song title that you want underlined, that’ll confuse things. D’oh! So the best approach, IMO, is to leave your text plain and then leave it up to the publisher/typesetter to set those details according to their preferences and guidelines.

@HungryGuy Every publisher I have worked with not only accepts, but demands electronic media and not hand written manuscripts. My publishers all wanted me to put in formatting I wanted, but they reserve final judgment on the choices that go to print. They do bounce changes off of the writer and give you a chance to hold forth in the case of technical work such as engineering or scientific writing. Sometimes arcane, unusual punctuation or formatting is critical to the meaning of a work to the target audience, but unknown to the editor or typesetter.

@ETpro – Most print publishers I know want an actual ms, but online publishers want a plain ASCII text file submitted through a writer’s portal on their web site. Though a few years ago, one demanded MS Word (ugh!) and wouldn’t compromise on anything else, so I had to go buy it (cost more to buy MS Word than what they paid for the story :-/

Interesting. Outside of magazine articles, all mine required Word Document files. All my work has been with publishers of technical books Maybe it is a market-driven thing.