In American English, periods and commas always go inside the closing quotation mark; semicolons, colons, asterisks, and dashes always go outside the closing quotation mark; and question marks and exclamation points require that you analyze the sentence and make a decision based on context. Courtesy of: http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/quotation-marks-with-periods-and-commas.aspx -VanDy