: Re: How do I avoid using punctuation inside quotation marks in technical writing? As a computer programmer, I comment my code. For example: The following lines are dependent on "source 1" and

@Smith147

If you are using double-quotes to indicate the entities, then the full-stop (or comma, or question mark) goes outside the quotes; the punctuation is not part of the entity in quotes. This is the same rule as for using parentheses (brackets), rather than for quoting speech and text (wherein the punctuation is part of the speech or text).

While I would normally say that how you indicate the entities is entirely up to you, there is an important caveat — if you are writing this code for a Company, rather than for yourself, then check if they have a Style Guide defining this! For example, where I work, Table Names and Job Names are in ALL CAPS, without quotes, and use periods instead of spaces (which can look weird when it is followed by a full-stop).


The following lines are dependent on SOURCE.1 and SOURCE.2. SOURCE.2 is user login and password. Overall, the purpose is to retrieve an AWS token. The ajax call to an AWS Gateway requires a token.


Beyond that, go wild: use double-quotes, square brackets, braces (i.e. "curly brackets"), strokes or slashes, colons, bold, italic, hashes, or even just a different font (e.g. a monospaced serif font to make it look like a typewriter or old terminal console). Just make sure it is consistent throughout the documentation, so that the reader only has to decipher it once.


"Source 1"
[Source 1]
{Source 1}
//Source 1//
Source 1
:Source 1:
Source 1
Source 1
#Source 1#
Source 1

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