Grammatical Question on a comma….?
Should the comma after “person” in the first set of quotes – since it is a break in the sentence rather than the quote itself, be after the quotation mark, or before – as it is here??
Rather confusing question, but I don’t know how else to say it. I hope it’s clear enough…
Thank you for your help!! Very appreciated…
Favorite Answer
“Our audience should judge themselves not by asking “Am I better than an another person?”, but rather “Am I better than I used to be?”.
Regardless, the comma goes on the outside, because it separates elements of the sentence, as opposed to delimiting parts of a conversation.
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/g_quote.html
To make it more clear, I’d write it like this:
Our audience should not ask themselves, “Am I better than another person?” but rather, “Am I better than I used to be?”
Also, if I were writing it in Word or something with formatting options, I would remove the quotation marks and put the two questions in italics.
Our audience should judge themselves not by asking “Am I better than the other person?” but rather “Am I better than I used to be?”.
Also, I think question marks should be added.
Hope this helps.
