Pimp my English | Direct speech

By Anna Malczyk
Whenever we quote someone or give an exact account of what they have said in their own words, we are using direct speech. Direct speech is always written in quotation marks. Here are some tips.

Quotation marks
At GetSmarter, we use “double” quotation marks instead of ‘single’ ones. Whenever you are writing direct speech, make sure that you are using the double ones.
•    Jane said, “I like cake.”

Order of the sentence
When quoting direct speech, you have three options.
1.    The entire sentence is the quote. Nothing else comes before or after.
       o    “My cat is called Fluffy.”
2.    An introductory or explanatory phrase comes before the quoted speech.
       o    Suzy turned around and said, “My cat is called Fluffy.”
3.    The quoted speech comes first, followed by an explanatory clause.
       o    “My cat is called Fluffy,” Suzy told us.

Punctuating option 1
In option 1, the entire sentence falls inside the quotation marks and therefore all the punctuation does too. (Think of the principles that apply to whole sentences in brackets here.)

Punctuating option 2
In option 2, the introductory part starts like a normal sentence. Just before the start of a quote, put a comma followed by a space. Then put in the quote as you did in option 1, including punctuation and all. Don’t put any punctuation after the final quotation mark.
•    Nathan asked, [comma and space] “Is this the way to your house?” [quoted speech with all punctuation included]

Punctuating option 3
Option 3 is slightly trickier because you need to pay attention to what type of punctuation is being used in the direct speech. In this option, start the sentence with your quotation mark and the text of what is being said. Then, you can end the quote with a comma (for normal sentence), a question mark (for a question) or an exclamation mark (for an exclamation), followed by the closing quotation mark.
•    “That’s so strange!” Jeremy said.
•    “I’d like some ice cream too,” Lucas added.

Never end a piece of direct speech with a full stop if you plan to add something after the quote.
•    Wrong: “Please help me with my homework.” John pleaded.
•    Right: “Please help me with my homework,” John pleaded.

This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution license.