Speech marks, inverted commas, quotation marks, quote marks, quotes, 66 and 99 – does any other punctuation mark have so many names or cause so much confusion…?!

Writing a story means striking a balance between what I call The Three Ds: Drama, Description and Dialogue. I’ve read quite a few stories from my pupils in which nobody talks to anyone – which is a bit odd! – but you need to know the rules of punctuation before you start.

• Start a new paragraph whenever the speaker changes or someone stops talking.
• Put speech marks before and after the actual words spoken, eg “Hello,“ he said, NOT “Hello, he said.”
• Start the first spoken word with a capital letter, eg she said, “This needs a capital letter,” NOT she said, “this needs a capital letter.”
• Put either a comma, question mark, exclamation mark or colon between the speech and the ‘he said/she said’, eg “Don’t forget the comma,” he said, NOT “Don’t forget the comma” he said.
• Put punctuation that belongs to the speech inside the speech marks, eg “The exclamation mark belongs inside!“, NOT “The exclamation mark belongs inside”! (The only exception comes with inverted commas, which look the same but are used with quotations rather than speech.)
• Put a full-stop after the ‘he said/she said’ if it comes in the middle of the speech and the first part is a full sentence; otherwise, just put a comma, eg “This is a full sentence,” she said. “This is, too.” BUT “This is not a full sentence,” she said, “and nor is this.”
• Don’t start the ‘he said/she said’ with a capital letter, even if it comes after a question mark or exclamation mark, eg “Don’t use a capital letter!” he shouted, NOT “Don’t use a capital letter!” He shouted.
• If a speech lasts more than one paragraph, put speech marks before each paragraph and after the last one but NOT after the ones before.
• Don’t put ‘he said/she said’ after every single line of dialogue in a long conversation if it’s obvious who is speaking.
• Finally, put the name of the person speaking after the verb, eg “Hello,” said Mrs Rogers, NOT “Hello,” Mrs Rogers said. It sounds better, and it helps put the emphasis where it belongs—on the person’s name.

Sample Questions

Format and put the correct punctuation and capital letters into the following lines of speech, changing the word order if necessary:

1. I say john what time is it mr jones asked
2. hello she said my name is tara
3. what are you talking about he cried I never said that
4. hello he said whats your name Sarah she said Im Alan Nice to meet you you too
5. I hate chocolate she said I only really eat chocolate ice-cream