Quotation marks, brackets and other punctuation

The exact position of some punctuation can be confusing. Let’s look at these examples:

"Good morning", said Lucy.

"Good morning," said Lucy.

"Good morning", she said. "How are you feeling?"

The comma after the word ‘morning’ can appear before or after the quotation marks. Placing it before the quotation marks is my preference and I feel it looks right. However, some people argue that it is not really part of what Lucy said and therefore it should go after the quotation marks. They would argue that the comma is simply a device that the writer uses to keep the sentence clear.

The question mark after the word ‘feeling’ is different. It seems to me fairly obvious that the question mark is actually part of what Lucy said. Presumably her intonation indicated that the words ‘how are you feeling’ were a question.

Brackets are a different case again. In the example that follows, the bracket should appear before the full stop - as in (a). I can’t think of any situation where (b) would be correct.

(a) The model was just right (albeit slightly large).
(b) The model was just right (albeit slightly large.)

You can be pedantic about these nuances in English, but I get a distinct feeling that very few people notice.

In business writing, our objective is to communicate with impact. It’s good to get these things right, but I suggest you spend most of your time focusing on more important things.