Q re ending punctuation on first lines

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Should exclamation or question marks be included at the end of first lines? I am looking to the text authorities for guidance but this appears to be inconsistent. "Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!" has punctuation at the end, but "Alas, and did my Savior bleed" does not. Periods, commas and semicolons I am always omitting.
--Eric


Comments

Very good question. Note the "u" in my Subject line; shouldn't the text authority have the pre-Noah-Webster spelling? And does the ? properly follow "bleed" or "die"?

I leave off ending punctuation when it is a comma, semicolon, or period but I include it when it is an exclamation mark or a question mark. For the text authorities, use the punctuation as it is in the oldest source. For the instance authorities, punctuate it as it is in the hymnal instance.