How best to punctuate a list of quoted questions? [closed]

This may not show up in common usage, but I write assessment reports and will often have to document the patient has several remaining questions for their physician. Since the report will be kept forever and could even be subpoenaed, I try to quote many statements exactly so there is no confusion.

Example 1:
She reported two remaining questions for the treatment team: “What is the recovery time?” and “What will I be able to do or not to do?”

When there are many questions, I will usually make a list:

Example 2:
She reported several remaining questions for the treatment team:
1. “What is the recovery time?”
2. "What will I be able to do or not to do?"
3. "How will the leads be placed?"

But when the patient has only one or even two questions, the list seems too much. But those are my two examples. So the dilemma, these are actual quotes that are also questions. Are commas or semi-colons needed, and if so do they go inside or outside of the quotation marks. And when the quote is a question, what about the period at the end of the sentence.

I suspect that I have changed my reasoning a few times over the years, but this is bugging me. For a while, I definitely added commas or colons after each question but then there is the dilemma of the final period. What is the correct way?

Solution 1:

You don't need quotation marks in the list.

The function of the quotation marks in your example 1 is to make sure the reader understands exactly where each question begins and end. Because your list has a numbered item on each line, there is no confusion. If this were a publication, an editor would take them out straightaway.

Similarly, you don't need semi-colons after each question as they already have question marks. Nor do you need a period after the third question, as this final question mark serves as the end of the sentence and list.

If you want to make sure it's understood that these are the exact words spoken by the patient you could add that they are verbatim. But unless there was potential ambiguity around the question I don't see why that should be necessary.