Why is the period outside the quotation marks in Rule 5?

[rgiaquinta]

If punctuation marks always go inside quotation marks, then why is the period outside the quotation marks in Rule 5?

The period is placed outside the quotation marks in that sentence because I did not want to imply that possession is indicated by an apostrophe followed by an "s" and then a period (i.e. "John's. books"). I think that my intentional disregard of the standard practice of including punctuation within quotations helps to avoid confusion in this case, without adding any ambiguity or awkwardness. In fact, I've always thought that the standard practice in this case can lead to confusion in many, many sentences, especially in direct quotes taken from the middle of a sentence. Putting a period within the quotation marks just because a "rule" tells us to can in certain situations imply that the original author of the sentence had a period in that spot too. I think that EVERYTHING (except ellipses) within a direct quotation should be identical to original author's text. That said, ALL grammarians that I have encountered have supported the rule that ALL PUNCTUATION GOES INSIDE QUOTATION MARKS. It's one of those rules where there seems to be practically no ambiguity and no exception, and therefore I might be doing us all a disservice in questioning it at all. Oh well. I intentionally violate the rule in feeble protest, but would not encourage my students to do so (unless they were also knowingly involving myself in my little rebellion), nor would I violate the rule if submitting a document for professional purposes where my rebellion would not be seen as thought provoking, but simply as just plain wrong.

[DragonflyDM]

Some people feel that the only appropriate time to use punctuation outside the quotation marks is when the quotation marks are used for emphasis or sarcasm.

For example: Bob was fired because he wasn't a "team player".

[Ann]

Hello--I can say with a fair amount of certainly that editors will follow the standard rule and correct those that are done otherwise.

Off topic, but I was wondering where everyone is. This is a nice site, I'm surprised there are not more participants.

[mkp]

I think the purpose of period is to put an end to the sentence. So that means that it should come at the end of the sentence. In the case of quotation marks even if they end it does not mean that the sentence has come to an end. Therefore period is placed at the end of the sentence outside the quotation marks. I would like to point out that grammarians around the world do not attach so much importance to punctuation marks as they used to do earlier.