Chicago Style Workout 24: Commas with Quotations and Questions

/ March 28, 2018

Gerald Ford

Go for the Extra Points!

This workout focuses on paragraphs 6.43–45 in CMOS 18. Advanced editors might tackle the questions cold; learners can study that section of the Manual before answering the questions.

Subscribers to The Chicago Manual of Style Online may click through to the linked sections of the Manual. (We also offer a 30-day free trial of CMOS Online.)

Note: Dictionaries and style guides sometimes disagree. These questions are designed to test your knowledge of The Chicago Manual of Style, which prefers the dictionary at Merriam-Webster.com. Other style guides may follow a different dictionary.

Now updated to refer and link to the 18th edition.

Chicago Style Workout 24: Commas with Quotations and Questions

1. An independent clause quoted in the form of dialogue or from text and introduced with said, replied, asked, wrote, or the like (including variations of such terms) is usually introduced with a comma:

She replied, “I hope you aren’t referring to us.”
2. Commas are required regardless of the position of the explanatory text relative to the quotation:

“I hope you aren’t referring to us,” she replied.
“I hope,” she replied, “you aren’t referring to us.”
3. A quotation introduced by that, whether, if, or a similar conjunction nearly always requires a comma:

He wondered whether, “to think is to live.”
4. She has written many poems. Is the following punctuation correct?

She recites her poem, “One Art,” every night before bed.
5. “Over the Top” is the only article Sid has even written. Is the punctuation in the following correct?

Sid’s article “Over the Top” was featured in the movie adaptation of the book.
6. Is the following punctuation correct?

The collection Notes of a Native Son features an essay called, “Equal in Paris.”
7. Is the following punctuation correct?

Of her many favorites, “One Art” is the one she knows best.
8. A direct question that is not enclosed in quotation marks is usually introduced by a comma (unless it comes at the beginning of a sentence) and begins with a capital letter:

She wondered, What am I doing?
9. If a direct question not in quotation marks ends before the end of the sentence, no comma is required after the question mark:

What am I doing? she wondered.
10. Indirect questions are never capitalized (except at the beginning of a sentence):

She wondered what she was doing.

 

Photo: Gerald Ford as a center on the University of Michigan football team, 1933. Courtesy Gerald R. Ford Library (via Wikimedia Commons).

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