My understanding is that rules governing punctuation and quotation marks are partly governed by what country you're writing in. For example, in American English, we always place periods inside quotation marks. However, is this still true when the quotation marks only include one word at the end of a sentence? Is the following example correct?
It's an oil-extraction method known as "fracking."
It feels off to me but if periods must always go inside quotation marks my guess is that it's correct.
The following rule is taken from "The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation" by Jane Straus, an American writer, judge and grammar guru for the first-ever Grammar Bee held at the California State University, and the founder of GrammarBook.com (I've given all this information to explain why I think we can trust this author's book):
Rule:
Periods and commas always go inside quotation marks, even inside single quotes:
She said, "Hurry up."
The sign changed from "Walk," to "Don't Walk," to "Walk" again within 30 seconds.
So, the punctuation in your sentence about fracking is correct.
I'm not saying you can never see a period outside quotation marks. As a matter of fact, you are likely to. But it doesn't mean that it's correct.
