Overall, you can stick to this basic rule: question marks and exclamation points go inside quotation marks if they are a part of the quoted matter. If they punctuate the sentence as a whole, they go outside of the quotation marks.
Do you put quotations before or after a question mark?
Place a question mark or exclamation point within closing quotation marks if the punctuation applies to the quotation itself. Place the punctuation outside the closing quotation marks if the punctuation applies to the whole sentence.
How do you punctuate a quote with a question mark?
To sum up the rules on question marks:
- If the quoted words are a question, put the question mark inside the quotation marks.
- If the entire sentence is a question, put the question mark outside the quotation marks.
