I raised this question about 7 years ago in this NG. I remember the answer but not the authority.
When a sentence ends with a quotation the period goes inside the quotation marks. But I understand that when the sentence ends with quotation marks that are not used to set off a quotation but are used to set off a special phrase the period goes outside the quotation marks. EXAMPLE: This agreement is between The Acme Merchandising Company, Inc. hereafter referred to as "Vendor" and John Doe hereafter referred to as "Customer".
I need an authority for this. I am in a dispute with a stuborne person who insists that when ever a sentence ends with quotation marks that the period goes inside.
Also would the same principle apply to a sentence that ended with an Email address set off with . This same person insists that the period shoud goe inside the carots.
Example: Please respond to (Email Removed).

~~
"Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel." Samuel Johnson "Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it."
George Bernard Shaw
Marc

Oy!

You have a problem. If your posting is accurate in indicating that you are at Cal Berkeley (my alma mater, BTW; class of 1961), you're asking about American usage and you are the one who is wrong. Except in certain technical writing where clarity is absolutely essential, standard American practice is always to put the period inside the closing quotation mark. Same for commas. What you describe is British practice. (Some Americans follow British practice. That doesn't make it American practice. It just makes those Americans eccentric. (Hi, Bob))
Needless to say, it's not at all easy to cite you an American style manual that tells you to do what Americans do not in fact do. Here's something that tells you you're wrong; it's from the FAQ at the website for the Chicago Manual of Style:

Q. Apparently Americans enclose periods commas inside quotation marks, but do the British do it that way too?
A. In what is sometimes called the British style (see paragraph
6.10), only those punctuation points that appeared in the originalmaterial should be included within the quotation marks; all others follow the closing quotation marks. This system works best with single quotation marks. (The British tend to use double quotation marks only for quotations within quotations.)

The question makes clear what the manual says American practice is (the FAQ answers questions that are based on what the manual says), and the answer makes clear that British practice differs.

I assume "shoud" and "goe" are typos. As for "carots," the proper spelling is "carets."

I'm not sure what this is supposed to be an example of, but it is the correct form. The closing period does NOT go inside the carets. This is not the same as for quotation marks. Putting the closing period inside would add the period to the URL and make it not work properly.

Bob Lieblich
Full stop

This proves only that the other person is American and you are not. The convention varies from country to country. (Although the "logical" convention, the one that says that you should put quotation marks around only what is being quoted, seems to be gaining favour in the USA.)

This case is more clear-cut. It tends to suggest that the stubborn person is more than a little stupid. The whole point of the carets is to make it clear that the following punctuation is not part of the address.

Peter Moylan (Email Removed) http://eepjm.newcastle.edu.au (OS/2 and eCS information and software)

Are they called carets? I thought the caret was ^. is "greater than". And there's my/the British way of positioning full stops.
Edward

The reading group's reading group:
http://www.bookgroup.org.uk

Good thing, because it doesn't. The American rule applies to commas and periods, not to question marks.
I assume you surrounded "marks" with quotation marks out of sheer mischief.

Donna Richoux