One of My Piggest Pet Peeves

is the tendency of far too many bloggers and commenters on boards to put commas outside the quotes. In American writing style, this is ALWAYS incorrect unless it is a citation. Why don't these stupid bloggers take a look at books and know periods and commas are NEVER outside the quotes? They don't. All of them are morons for making such an egregious error, and any teacher who allows it should be fired.

In Britain, which always does things weird like people driving on the wrong side of the road, punctuation goes outside the quotes. It frankly looks hideous. But the rule in American writing is this:

Periods and commas go inside the quotes. The ONLY exception is a reference citation like this:
"I hate commas outside quotation marks" (Nunes 2011).
Semicolons and colons go outside the quotes.
Exclamation points and question marks go inside if it is part of the quote but outside if not.

It's not rocket science, people. Do it correctly.