[QUOTE="C J Campbell"] Punctuation always appears before the closing quote. It is in the AP style guide. :-)[/QUOTE] Provided the punctuation is either a period or comma. :-) Dunno anything about "the AP style guide," but this is correct use of punctuation in the U.S. It's not the way the British do it. (But then they aren't always consistent either.) All other punctuation is either inside or outside the closing quote according to where it logically belongs. In the case of periods and commas it's always inside whether it logically belongs there or not.