Student Question

Should a period follow the citation in the sentence: "AAAAAAAAAA." (Jane 20) BBBBBBBB?

Quick answer:

A period should follow the citation in the sentence, not inside the quotation marks. Place the period after the closing parenthesis of the citation as it completes the sentence. This is standard in MLA and most citation styles. Only one period is necessary unless the quotation ends with a punctuation mark other than a period, such as a question mark, which would remain inside the quotation marks.

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Expert Answers

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In general, I always advocate putting a period after closing parenthesis. If you are quoting, you would format it as follows:

Here the quote "AAAAAAAA" (Jane 20) ends.
or
Here ends the quote: "AAAAAAAA" (Jane 20).

You never make the citation into its own sentence:

WRONG --> Here ends the quote "AAAAAAAA." (Jane 20).

Place the period inside the parenthesis only if the parenthetical statement is a separated sentence. (This one, for example.) But you wouldn't put the period inside otherwise (for example, here).

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There would only be one period, but in rare cases their could be more punctuation. If you are quoting a question, a question mark would follow the quote inside the quotation marks. Then, there would still be a period after the citation in parenthesis. In most cases, the quotation will be a statement. In this case, the punctuation would go after the citation in parenthesis. The only time there would be more than one punctuation mark is if the quotation ends with punctuation other than a period.

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The above are correct. You only need one period after the parenthesis. However, if you want more information on who to do in-text citations with a bunch of variations, then take a look at this website: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/02/

It is from Purdue University and it gives a nice summary of MLA citation rules.

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Completely true. You only need one period to end any sentence. You can either use the period that is included in the quote if you want to end your sentence with the quote or just show the end of the quote with speech marks and then go on to end the sentence when you are ready.

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The above answer is a good way to think about it. You are basically including the quotation and the citation (in parenthesis) in the same sentence. So you put one period, after the parenthesis, and that is all. This is true for MLA and most other methods.

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