Q. Dear CM: I have read everything I could find on text citation and have one remaining question, re section 15.25 (“author-date citations are usually placed just before a mark of punctuation”). BUT, what if the text ends with a period and quotation marks? “. . . most of the time (Pynchon 1974, 313).” Is this the correct placement of the period and the quotation marks?
A. It depends. The way you’ve written it means that “(Pynchon 1974, 313)” is part of the quoted text. If you want Pynchon to be the source of the quotation, and not part of what’s quoted, do it this way: “. . . most of the time” (Pynchon 1974, 313).