Question Marks with Quotation Marks
The question mark goes inside the quotes when the quoted words are the question.
Unlike commas and periods, question marks and exclamation marks follow logic in every major style guide, British and American alike. Placement depends on what is being asked.
If the quoted material is itself a question, the mark goes inside: She asked, "Where is the file?" If your own sentence is the question and the quoted material is not, the mark goes outside: Who said "the medium is the message"?
When both are questions, use one mark inside and none outside: Did she really ask, "Where is the file?" Doubling the punctuation is never correct in edited prose.
Common mistake: applying the American 'periods and commas always inside' rule to question marks. That rule is typographic and covers only those two marks; question and exclamation marks are placed by meaning.
“Who first wrote "the unexamined life is not worth living"?”
Keep reading the glossary
The rule — differing on either side of the Atlantic — for where the comma and period sit relative to a closing quotation mark.
Placing punctuation inside quotation marks only when it belonged to the quoted material.
The classical name for a rhetorical question — one asked for effect, not for information.
A national style difference — double in American English, single in much of British English.