Glossary » logical punctuation
logical punctuation
a recommended approach to placing punctuation where the punctuation is logically grouped with the part of the sentence it applies to, rather than where arbitrary rules imply it should go. For instance, your grammar teachers said to put commas and periods inside quotes like this:
“Reading is fun,” said the grammar teacher.
Commas were originally put inside quotes as an artifact of how type was set. Now that text appears on a screen, it makes more sense to put it outside the quote:
“The Web is more fun”, says the tech-writer.
Use punctuation where it makes sense. Use commas to indicate pauses, and to reduce ambiguity.
