Punctuation

Rule: Placement of Question Marks Within Quotation Marks

My natural instinct is to always place a question mark within the quotation marks. However, the AP Stylebook mentions it could be placed “inside or outside, depending on the meaning.” If we are quoting an actual question a person has asked or that is within a text, the question mark belongs on the inside. If we are asking a question within our writing and end the sentence with a phrase that needs to be quoted, we place the question mark outside of the quotation marks.

The following editing mistake has no relevance to the rule I chose. I didn’t search for a specific mistake relating to the placement of question marks, but the mistake I found relates to the rule of hyphen usage.

Rule: The AP Stylebook says, “hyphens are joiners. Use them to avoid ambiguity or to form a single idea from two or more words.”

Mistake: “He leaves on Wednesday to the Mexico MTC! If you want to come to his farewell it’s in Kaysville! Message me for the address- come say goodbye at my parents house afterwards!

This was a comment under an Instagram post of a friend whose brother was leaving on an LDS mission. I noticed the improper use of a hyphen. I do not feel the hyphen is needed. She could have taken it out and replaced it with ‘and’ and the sentence would have been just fine. She also could have separated the phrase into two sentences.