I couldn’t find a “grammar help” community so I thought this might be a good place to pose this question. Sorry for asking something that boils down to “please help me with my homework” but I’m at a loss. I’m supposed to be using MLA format.
Here’s the text I’m quoting:
“While recognizing the critical potential of the dystopic imagination, this volume examines it as a form of urban representation; the modern city, after all, appears to be an instantiation of a dystopic form of society.”
Here’s my sentence:
Prakash notes the utility of dystopian media, stating “this volume examines it as a form of urban representation; the modern city, after all, appears to be an instantiation of a dystopic form of society.” (3)
Is this right? Should I have the period at the end of the parentheses? I tried looking through my textbook and a few online articles but I couldn’t find an example with a parenthetical citation and a quote that includes a period. Thanks for the help!
It depends on the country. This is true in American English and it’s what we teach in schools. In British English (which, in my experience, is what most ESL learners outside the US end up learning), they go outside the quotes. Source.
My experience is that EFL learners tend to be taught American English, but that might just be in Japan.
I’m French and we mostly mearn British English in school. But then again, we’re very close to GB and Japan is very Americanized (occupation and all that). I think a country that’s halfway between them and has no privileged relationship with either should step into this conversation. Like Russia, Mongolia or Kazakhstan. However, as you might have noticed from the previous sentence, I refuse to use the Oxford comma because we don’t use it on French and it doesn’t make sense.
I would be very interested in the experiences of people learning on countries which are neither European nor especially attached to the US.