What do we find in this conversation? [Check previous post.]
[1] Q-marks usually go in pairs.
[2] They become single when you need them for a quote within a quote. (“I already spoke to Harry,” she said. “And he said, ‘I care a rap!’”) I find placing three Q marks together a bit awkward and try my best to avoid such sentences.
[3] Question marks and exclamation marks are placed within the Q marks.
[4] Commas are used to set off direct speech. When the direct speech continues after the mention of the speaker, the sentence begins with a lower case letter. (“I was there,” she said, “and saw what happened.”)
[5] Place a full stop (period) and continue the speech and you need to start the speech with a capital letter as you always do. (“I don’t agree with you,” she said. “Because I know it is not true.”)
Now for quotes. When you are quoting someone we know as against some fictional character, you have no business to take liberties with punctuation marks. You just quote verbatim, period. If the quote is: Workers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains! you reproduce it with the punctuation marks. Your sentence would be:
Rousseau said, “Workers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!” If you want to add, say, an exclamation/question mark to a quote, you write the quote, place all the punctuation marks original to the quote, set it off with the quotation marks and then add what you want. Look at this: If your sentence is,
Did Rousseau say, “Workers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!”? That’s how it goes.

