Library of Formatting Examples:Italics/44A

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Correctly formatted text

[Footnote 1: A contemporary account, quoted in <i>George III, his Court
and Family</i>.]

[Footnote 2: Stanhope: <i>Life of Pitt</i>.]

[Footnote 3: <i>Jerningham Letters.</i>]

[Footnote 4: Galt: <i>George III, his Court and Family</i>.]

Complete and incomplete sentences

These footnotes demonstrate the criteria for placing periods inside or outside the markups.

Number 1 is straightforward: a mixed sentence (upright and italics), so the period goes outside.

Number 2 is also a mixed sentence: "Stanhope" is upright, the colon is a separator, and only the name of the book is in italics, so the period goes outside.

Number 3 is a completely italicized "sentence" containing only the name of the book, so the period goes inside the tags.

Number 4 is like number 2, with the period outside. However, the comma is part of the title, so it goes inside the single pair of tags.

And, for purposes of determining sentence structure, the Footnote tag itself, which includes the number and colon, is not part of the text, so its colon has nothing to do with whether or not "Jerningham Letters." in the third Footnote is a complete sentence. It is.