Dialogue and Quotation Marks

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Dialogue and Quotation Marks
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• Direct Quotations Use quotes to surround the
  information that is to be directly cited, this
  includes what a person says.
• If you introduce a speaker, separate it with a
  comma.
• Capitalize the first letter in the quote if it is
  the beginning of a sentence.

• Ex The monster said, Why am I so ugly?
• Ex Because, the doctor replied, you are a
  wretched monster.
• Notice that there are commas around both sides of
  the doctor replied because the sentence being
  quoted is continued.

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• Ex No, it said. I am not wretched!
• --In this case, No is an interjection and should
  be ended with a punctuation mark, but the comma
  is used, and the punctuation moved to after the
  explanatory remark.

• What is wrong with this example
• He said I dont want to hear you whine about how
  you dont want to be wretched!

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• Always place commas and periods inside quotation
  marks.
• Colons and semicolons belong outside quotation
  marks.
• Place an exclamation mark or a question mark
  inside the quotation marks if it is a part of the
  quote
• if it is a part of the sentence (not the quote),
  put it outside the quotation marks
• if both, use only one inside the quotes.

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• Ex He said, I think so however, Im not sure
  if he was or not.
• --Note the semicolon outside the quote.

• Ex Did he say, I dont know?
• --I dont know is not a question, so the
  question mark goes outside.
• Ex Did he ask, What do you think?
• --Notice that both the quote and the sentence are
  questions with one interior question mark.

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• Use single quotation marks around quotes within a
  quote.
• Ex He said, I think he told me to Go jump in a
  lake.

• Ex The teacher told us, My mom always said,
  Play with bulls, get gored.
• Ex She said, I heard Billy say, Gert said,
  Shes smelly.

Woah! That makes my head spin!
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P-P-Paragraphing!

• When writing dialogue, start a new paragraph and
  a new set of quotations whenever the speaker
  changes.

Tip You dont always need to write he said..
or Billy said. Sometimes it is implied and
can be easily figured out by the reader. That
helps when the he said thing becomes monotonous.
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This excerpt is taken from Enders Game by Orson
Scott Card
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• If a speaker talks over multiple paragraphs,
  leave the end of the paragraph open (no quote
  mark), but put a quote mark in at the beginning
  of the next paragraph of dialogue.

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This excerpt is taken from Enders Game by Orson
Scott Card
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• Put unknown or unusual slang or expressions in
  quotes. Put directly stated definitions in
  quotes.
• Ex I yelled at my sister for saying cut the
  cheese its slang that means flatulence.

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MLA and Citation

• You can mold your quote into part of your
  sentence dont use commas.
• Ex According to Doc, everyone must watch that
  lovable cat and delightful mouse on Feb 2 (45).
• Remember MLA citation
• end quote
• open parentheses
• author name
• page number
• End parentheses
• period

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• Examples of MLA
• Harold Bloomfeld writes, Its a matter of
  semantics (73).
• It was on a rainy day that the world learned of
  the tragedy that befell young Djiboutians
  (Marsden 67).
• John Farquhar is an expert in tree fungus and
  claims that there are more than forty-thousand
  types of tree fungus, two-hundred of which
  emanate a phosphorescent glow (383).

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Vernacular

• Be very careful of writing in the vernacular, or
  a characters dialect. Mark Twain was great at
  it, but it is very difficult to do.

• Ayuh, I guess that Id be a goo-in out ta da
  bahn wheya Id be a findint dat deya ol
  heiffah. Shes a wicked gawgiss ol buh-id,
  taint she?

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Put quotes around

• titles of short stories
• short poems
• short songs
• newspaper/magazine articles
• book chapters
• single episode titles of TV shows.

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Underline or italicize titles for

• books
• long poems
• plays, films
• TV series
• paintings
• long songs

• name of ships, planes, spacecraft
• newspapers and magazine names
• court cases
• Also italicize anything in a foreign language or
  a direct reference to a word.