Consider:
What design patterns have been developed for common tasks like room navigation, edge detection, object pickup, etc?
Should it be the following?
What design patterns have been developed for common tasks like room navigation, edge detection, object pickup, etc.?
Or does the last punctuation eat any preceding ones? Is there a general rule?
Basic rule for an individual punction mark: one or none. Generally there isn't a case where you would want to use .., ,,, '', !!, ??
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robertd
[ Editor ]
In your example, the dot after "etc." should definitely stand.
Without having thought of it before, the end-of-sentence period/full stop is the only one that seems to get absorbed into another punctuation mark:
I never finished my Ph.D.
And not:
I never finished my Ph.D..
Or:
She asked, "Why not?"
But not:
She asked, "Why not?".
Agreed about not doubling punctuation, apart from !! or ?? for emphasis in informal writing. For example, there's the explicit rule about alternating types of quotation marks for nested quotes:
He said, "She said, 'What did you say?'"
For one exception, sometimes you’ll see parentheses doubled, as in “(for more information, see A. Uthor (2010))”.
donald remero
[ Moderator ]
The Chicago manual (14th ed.) provides this guidance in sections 5.134-5:
The use of more than one mark of punctuation at the same location in a sentence (multiple punctuation) is, for the most part, limited to instances involving quotation marks, parentheses, brackets, or dashes. An abbreviating period, however, is never omitted before a mark of sentence punctuation unless the latter is the period terminating a sentence.
When more than one mark of punctuation (excepting quotation marks, parentheses, brackets, and sometimes dashes) is called for at one location in a sentence, only the stronger or more necessary mark is retained.
Despite the fact that Chicago does not provide a specific comment on the question mark, when I look at the language of their comment closely, it does appear to me to clearly advise the retention of abbreviating periods in the case of terminating question marks, which are clearly not periods.
Thus, the following is correct:
What has been done for instances of X, including 1, 2, 3, etc.?
Have you taken care of all you are required to do, like A, B, C, etc.?
Does Thomas really have a Ph.D.?
(Note: I was half expecting the commentary on question marks (5.133) to state that question marks should be treated like periods when terminating a sentence, but this comment is NOT made. Rather, they subordinate the discussion of question marks to the localized discussions of other punctuation marks. Thus, it should be perfectly clear that the omission of question marks in the statement "unless the later is the period terminating a sentence" does carry the weight of an explicit exclusion of question marks.)
The Chicago manual does support the use of a combined "?!", and provides this example (among others), the order of which I have slightly modified so as to make it read like a narrative, plus I have added an ending:
Go home.
Go home?
Go home!
Go home?!
[Yes! Go! Home!]
The doubling of punctuation for emphasis in formal writing is universally frowned upon. It is, however, common in informal writing.
bazz
She asked, "Why not?".
This is the correct format in the above sentence contrary to the author's opionion. The reason is that the question mark belongs to what she asked so is inside the quotaion marks. This still needs the full-stop unless you are using US English which enveloped the "period" into quotation marks due to type-writer indiscrepencies years ago.
