<p>OK, sorry, but i HAVE to bring this up! I see parents doing this, students doing this, and people who claim to be getting 2300+s doing this! THE QUOTATION MARK GOES AFTER THE PERIOD!</p>
<p>For example, this is correct:</p>
<p>The Yale Admissions Officer said that it "is hard to get into the school."</p>
<p>This is NOT correct:</p>
<p>The Yale Admissions Officer said that it "is hard to get into the school".</p>
<p>Sorry, I know I sound like a really anal freak, but it's just embarassing to see so many bright kids and parents making the same mistake over and over again, AND MAYBE IT WILL HELP YOU WITH COLLEGE ESSAYS! :)</p>
<blockquote>
<p>this is correct:
The Yale Admissions Officer said that it "is hard to get into the school."
This is NOT correct:
The Yale Admissions Officer said that it "is hard to get into the school".<<</p>
</blockquote>
<br>
<p>It's not always that clear cut.
What you have here is correct for American usage, but for British usage it's the other way around.</p>
<p>OK, well f you are applying to an AMERICAN university, which the majority of people on this website are, then please do not do it the British way.</p>
<p>Fair enough. But likewise, if you are American and you see it written the British way you should not assume that it is incorrect. You may simply be reading the work of a British author. Moreover, when quoting a British author in a paper, essay, or what not, do not attempt to correct the "error" or mark it with (sic), because it's not an error.</p>
<p>OK! Geez! I was just trying to help you guys out because I know that a lot of you are writing college essays like I, and I didn't want you to write it like that on your essays! </p>
<p>And the majority of people on this site are applying and plan to attend an American university, so I figured that the information would be helpful.</p>
<p>If you really want to help out the college applicants with their essays, teach them how to spell "definitely" correctly. That's the most common mistake I see here on CC.</p>
<p>The Yale admissions officer told us that admissions were "competitive".</p>
<p>The Yale admissions officer said, "Admissions here are competetive."</p>
<p>If you want to quote only a piece of something someone said without making it true dialogue, the period goes outside the quotation. If you want to make it sound like an actual piece of dialogue, then it goes inside. You should learn your grammar better before you try to preach in everyone's face.</p>
<p>Although it may be a rule to always put a period in quotation marks, I think it is one that is largely ignored, similar to two spaces after a period (the grammatically correct way). It doesn't make sense to me that a period would go inside a quotation that it doesn't apply to, but oh well.</p>
<p>If any adcom is paying attention to where you put your quotation marks, then there has got to be soemthing seriously wrong there. Also, the only place where this will matter is for the SAT, which is a flat out stupid test that doesn't measrue anything other than how well you take the test. I agree with semiserious about the quotation placement though.</p>
<p>"THE QUOTATION MARK GOES AFTER THE PERIOD!"</p>
<p>There is an old stratedy involving multiple choice and true or false questions: a response containing "always" is usually wrong. This seems to apply to a rule that would state that the quotations mark always goes after the period. </p>
<p>Even with the American usage, the period goes outside of the quotation mark when using a parenthetical reference.</p>
<p>"Animals have a variety of emotions similar to human's" (Erikson 990).</p>
<p>Also, if a parenthetical citation follows an omission at the end of a sentence, place the period after the final parenthesis.</p>
<p>Of the many fruits available, Abraham Lincoln thought "apples to be the most nutritious . . . " (47).</p>
<p>Yes, of course there are exceptions for paranthetical documentation, but I was just pointing out this common mistake for those who are typing in a more colloquail fashion (without citations). And yes, people definitely learn how to spell definitely!</p>
<p>". . . similar to two spaces after a period (the grammatically correct way)."</p>
<p>Again, I hate to claim something is wrong just because I've never seen it, but do you have a reference? It seems dubious that something that only applies to electronic media is universally stylistically correct, let alone grammatically correct. From what I understand, the space character on typewriters was too small and made distinguishing printed sentences hard. As the computer came into wider use, and became more advanced, its typesetting took care of character spacing, word spacing etc... automatically, rendering the use of two spaces pointless.</p>
<p>In terms of usage, if you compare anything you've printed with two spaces at the end of a sentence with any book, magazine or other professionally typeset literature, you'll notice that only one space is used. Also, if you look at your own posts in your browser and check how many spaces are between sentences, you'll notice there is only one. All browsers compact consecutive spaces, unless you explicitly use a hard space.</p>
<p>Stylistically, though, you can do whatever you want, but, unless I'm mistaken (which is possible), it isn't a set standard.</p>
<p>Oh, and boredofeducation: You misspelled "parenthetical" ;).</p>