The MLA Handbook notes, “By convention, commas and periods that directly follow quotations go inside the closing quotation marks” (267). Thus, in the following sentence, the comma is placed after taught: “You’ve got to be carefully taught,” wrote Oscar Hammerstein II. The rule is the same for a list of titles: Julio Cortázar wrote many short stories, … Continue reading Why do periods and commas go inside quotation marks in MLA style?