Hernandez states Children who eat at least one meal a day with the family unit are shown to have more stable relationships in adolescence and adulthood

Which of the following reflects the proper punctuation of the above sentence?

Hernandez states, “Children who eat at least one meal a day with the family unit are shown to have more stable relationships in adolescence and adulthood.”
Hernandez states: “Children who eat at least one meal a day with the family unit are shown to have more stable relationships in adolescence and adulthood?”
“Hernandez states,” Children who eat at least one meal a day with the family unit are shown to have more stable relationships in adolescence and adulthood.”
“Hernandez states . . . Children who eat at least one meal a day with the family unit are shown to have more stable relationships in adolescence and adulthood. . .” .

Hernandez states, “Children who eat at least one meal a day with the family unit are shown to have more stable relationships in adolescence and adulthood.”

Answer Link

michell96 michell96 · Answer 2 · 2019-01-27T03:05:28+01:00

The correct answer is A. Hernandez states, “Children who eat at least one meal a day with the family unit are shown to have more stable relationships in adolescence and adulthood.”

Explanation:

In this sentence, there are mainly two punctuation marks the first one is the comma (,) that according to grammar has multiple uses including to separate ideas in a sentence, in a list of items and before quotes. Thus, as the comma is used before a quote mark by quotation marks the use of the comma is correct. On the other hand, the quotation marks (“”) are used to separate quotes or words said by someone, this means in texts quotation marks show the ideas do not belong to the writer but to someone else, as the first part of the sentence is "Hernandez States", it can be assumed the following words do not belong to the writer but to Hernandez and thus these ideas should be in quotation marks as in option A. This implies in option A. the punctuation is appropiately as both the comma and the quotation mark follow grammatical rules.