Thread:AuburnAutumn/@comment-16811522-20130912231838

As you live in California which of course is part of the U.S., you are an American, which is a citizenship (as anyone can come to the U.S and not be even born and from here at all). Because of this, you have to use commas and periods inside a quotation, otherwise a teacher would flunk you on that. I'll give you quotes by two teachers.

Here's what one teacher said on her website:

'''Since most of my international students were taught in schools that followed the British system, I tell them to continue placing their commas and periods as they were taught. In the first place, most of them will soon return to their home countries, so it would be silly to force them to switch to our style for the few years that they are here.'''



'''But even more important is the matter of consistency. If we try to force international students to adopt the American style, they will end up mixing the two styles, sometimes placing commas and periods inside, sometimes outside quotation marks. It is far better for them to continue using the British style than to incongruously blend the two.'''



'''My American students, though, don't get to choose. They have to do it the American way, just as they have to drive on the right side of the street, even though the British drive on the left side. (Of course, the British also drive on the right side when they are in this country, so maybe that's not such a good comparison.)'''

In the last paragraph of that article, the teacher wrote: "...If you are an American, you need to keep your commas and periods inside your closing quotation marks, where they belong."

Here's what the teacher who wrote English Grammar for Dummies said:

'''When I correct the quotation marks in students' papers, I find that students are often puzzled. "Why did you move that period?" they ask. "Why did you change the single quotation marks to doubles? Do I really need a capital letter there?" They have a lot of questions for me (including that old favorite: "Why do we have to know this stuff?"). I always have one for them too (No, I don't ask, "Do you know the way to detention?" I'm much nicer than that.) I do ask them what rule they were following when they placed the quotation marks, the capital letters, the periods, and the commas. Surprisingly, they always have an answer. Then they quote a rule to me that justifies what they wrote. Unfortunately, the rules they quote don't exist; they're myths, not rules. Even more unfortunately, English grammar governs the use of quotation marks with a huge number of rules - more than oir beloved governmental agency, the Internal Revenue Service?'''

So please stop changing it, as a lot on here also know about correct grammar. You said that you'll use your way according to what you see as non-silly, right? That's only thinking of yourself, and not considering how other people besides me read it. 