Question marks are easily recognized has the icon that turns a statement into a question. You may be interested to know, however, that while question marks typically fall at the end of a sentence, they can sometimes be used mid-setence.
Terms You Need to Know to Use Question Marks
QUESTION
A question is at its most basic a request for an answer. It is what you use to ask for something.
2 Ways to Use Question Marks
- Ask a Question (End of Sentence)
- Ask a Question (Mid-sentence)
1. Ask a Question (End of Sentence)
DESCRIPTION
Question marks are used to ask a question. The main difference between the uses for a question mark is where the question is asked. Most commonly, the question appears as a complete sentence, with the question mark at the end.
APPLICATION
To use a question mark to ask a question at the end of a sentence (or if the question is the whole sentence) put the question mark at the end of the sentence as the closing punctuation mark.
EXAMPLE
- Why does Felicity have a cell phone tower in her backyard?
- (This sentence asks a question that is the entire sentence, so the question mark is the closing punctuation.)
2. Ask a Question (Mid-sentence)
DESCRIPTION
Question marks are used to ask a question. The main difference between the uses for a question mark is where the question is asked. Most commonly, the question appears as a complete sentence, but sometimes questions appear in the middle of a sentence.
APPLICATION
To use a question mark to ask a question mid-sentence, put the question mark after the part of the sentence that is asking the question.
EXAMPLE
- Why would someone steal a bible? was the question of the day at the book festival.
- (In this sentence, the question comes in the middle. Mid-sentence questions can seem a bit awkward, but they aren’t technically wrong if the sentence is readable and makes sense. Use mid-sentence questions sparingly.)
- I heard Eddie and Joe casually discussing—are they for real?—an office bake-off.
- (In this sentence, the question is mid-sentence, but the question acts as emphasis and expansion on an idea, so is offset by em dashes.)
NOTE
Tag questions—questions that are “tagged” at the end of a statement using phrases like “isn’t it?,” “did you?,” “wasn’t she?,” “aren’t they?” and so forth—should not be used mid-sentence, as they turn the entire sentence into a question. For example: “Seeing that building leaning the right is really troubling, isn’t it?” works better as a tag question than saying, “It is troubling—isn’t it?—to see that building leaning to the right.”