There was a raging debate on Twitter yesterday about punctuation and quotations. Most people came down on the side of putting punctuation inside the closing quotation mark and that's how American English does it. Quoth Wikipedia:
American English places commas and periods inside the quotation almost all of the time, making exceptions only for parenthetical citation and cases in which the addition of a period or comma would create confusion, such as when quoting a keyboard entry or a web address.
I get that, but I respectfully disagree. I prefer the British style:
The British style places them inside or outside the quotation marks according to whether or not the punctuation is part of the quoted material.
Maybe it's from reading Eats, Shoots & Leaves or maybe it's from my life as a programmer, but I think only the quoted material should be inside the marks.
We could debate this at length (and I'm happy to hear your thoughts in the comments), but I think if we just choose a style and stick to it, that should do the trick. Of course, if I got a gig writing for a publication, I'd happily comply with whatever style guide they prefer.