TILS is very excited to offer this guest post from Professor Jennifer Romig, a.k.a., Listen Like a Lawyer. Professor Romig teaches legal research and writing at Emory Law. She also teaches an advanced course in blogging and social media for law students and lawyers. Professor Romig can be followed on Twitter at @JenniferMRomig and @ListenLikeaLwyr.
Thank you, Professor Romig, for this insight on logical punctuation!
Logical punctuation?
U.S. English has a peculiar style with its quotation
mechanics. When you are quoting a passage of text and when that text ends with
a period or comma, the period or comma should be placed inside the
quotation mark.
U.S.
English style prefers this:
The key reason the court
adopted the objective rather than subjective test was “administrative
necessity.”
Not
this:
The key reason the court
adopted the objective rather than subjective test was “administrative necessity”.
In American usage, the ending
quotation marks come after (not
before) commas and periods: The court held that “[i]n an action for negligence,
the plaintiff must prove duty, breach, causation, and damages.”
U.S. law students often struggle to adopt this style,
perhaps because it does not seem logical to them. After all in the example
above, the period is not actually part of the quote. Thus it does not seem
particularly logical, which is why placing the period outside the
quotation is described as “logical punctuation.” If the period outside the
quote is logical punctuation, then the prevalent style for quotations in U.S.
English is, well, illogical.
Adapting this style can be even more challenging for
students with educational backgrounds outside the U.S. because the U.S. style is
out of step with quotation practices in other countries. A helpful article on
this issue is
Ben
Yagoda’s The Rise of Logical Punctuation.
In the article, he distinguishes “American style” from “British style.” He
points out that British style is more aptly described as “logical punctuation”
in part because it is more consistent with the logic of computer coding.
But stylistic practices are not always logical; they are
cultural and often the product of longstanding historical uses. Thus, to
reiterate U.S. style, the following examples are viewed as correct in a
U.S. legal document:
As
defined by the Fifth Circuit’s opinion, “The principal issue on appeal [was] whether the taxpayer
[was] entitled to deduct as an ordinary and necessary business expense the cost
of purchasing and maintaining the Yves St. Laurent clothes and accessories worn
by the taxpayer in her employment as the manager of the boutique.”
Because subjectively
determining whether certain clothing is appropriate to an individual taxpayer’s
lifestyle is “virtually impossible,” the Fifth Circuit instead applied an
objective test.
For many U.S. readers who may not have critically examined
their own stylistic preferences, periods and commas inside the quotations just
look right. Even though tens of millions of English speakers place the
periods and commas outside the quotation marks, doing so may look wrong to a
U.S. reader.
There are a few more specific points to note here. First,
this rule does not apply to question marks and semicolons. Semicolons
and question marks should be inside a quotation mark if they are part of the
quote. Semicolons and question marks should be outside the quotation mark if
the question mark is part of the larger sentence that includes the quote. Here
are several correct examples:
Does this objective test truly provide a
“practical administrative approach”?
The court asked, “Would a
reasonable taxpayer wear these clothes for personal wear when not performing
work-related duties?”
The objective test is a
“practical administrative approach”; it has the benefit of avoiding subjective
decisions about taxpayers’ lifestyle and clothing.
British
style on quotations differs a little bit or a lot, depending on what source you
consult.
The University of Oxford Style Guide recommends very different
quotation practices. It would differ on two of the examples above, when the
quote is a fragment of text within the broader sentence:
The key reason the court
adopted an objective rather than subjective test was “administrative
necessity”.
Because subjectively
determining whether certain clothing is appropriate to an individual taxpayer’s
lifestyle is “virtually impossible”, the Fifth Circuit instead applied an
objective test.
The
Oxford Style Guide points to stylistic differences that are actually even more
pronounced. British style’s use of single and double quotation marks is exactly
the opposite from U.S. style: “Use single quotation
marks for direct speech or a quote, and double quotation marks for direct speech
or a quote within [a quote].” (This is from page 16.)
Thus,
the following example shows British and U.S. styles for embedded quotations in
which one source quotes another:
British style:
‘An objective test is not only reasonable but “the only
administratively necessary alternative”.’
U.S. style:
“An objective test is not only reasonable but ‘the only
administratively necessary alternative.’”
Note
the multiple differences here: U.S. style uses double quotations for the main
quotation and single quotations for the quote within the quote. U.S. style
places the period inside both sets of quotation marks at the end of the
sentence.
Happily,
when a quotation is a full sentence and is formally introduced, U.S. and
British styles treat it essentially the same:
As
defined by the Fifth Circuit’s opinion, “The principal issue on appeal [was] whether the taxpayer
[was] entitled to deduct as an ordinary and necessary business expense the cost
of purchasing and maintaining the Yves St. Laurent clothes and accessories worn
by the taxpayer in her employment as the manager of the boutique.”
In
both styles, the period goes inside the quotation marks, whether single or
double, with U.S. style using double quotation marks shown above.
There
is one evolving exception in U.S. style. That exception is for transactional
drafting. When defining a term in a contract, the logical or British style is
often preferred:
Employees shall wear
“Official Acme Clothing”, defined as the following: a polo-style shirt bearing
the Acme logo on the right front and no other markings, khaki slacks with a
belt, and brown or black dress loafers with a heel lower than 0.5 inch. The key reason the court adopted an objective rather than subjective test was "administrative necessity".
Recently
U.S. corporation Adobe Systems published its internal Legal Department Style
Guide (downloadable here) The Adobe Legal Department
Style Guide focuses largely—but not exclusively—on drafting licensing
agreements. The flowchart titled “Organize Yourself Before You Begin Writing”
would benefit any legal writer creating any type of document. The Adobe Legal Department
Style Guide uses logical punctuation—in other words, British style—throughout.
Legal writing author and speaker Ross Guberman has also noted that U.S. patent prosecutors often use
the British style.
The
difference in these two styles can create a decision for law students seeking
employment. To seek employment in the United States, a student is well advised
to format application materials using U.S. style. To seek employment in other
countries where law is practiced in English, the British style may be more
commonplace. Overall, the most important thing is to recognize the difference
between these two styles and to select the best approach for the situation,
then implement it as consistently as possible throughout each document.
Also
please know that your word processor may be able to notify you when quotations
are using (or not using) a particular setting. On Microsoft Word for Mac 2011,
for example, it is possible to check whether punctuation required with
quotations is “inside” or “outside.” To do so, use the “Tools” menu to check
spelling and grammar, and then click on “options” and further on “settings” to
select your preference. [Screen shots can be found below.] The U.S. preference
would be to place the punctuation inside. Microsoft Word will indicate possible
errors with a green wavy line under the problematic text:
However,
Microsoft Word will not be able to differentiate complex situations such as a
quoted question in contrast to a question that contains a quote at the
end.
