by Lucy E. Zahnle

Created on: February 26, 2010

One aspect of dialogue that often confuses writers is the difference between a direct quotation and an indirect quotation. While the two are related, they are presented differently in the text, they are punctuated differently, and they serve different purposes in a story, paper, or article.

Direct quotations, or direct quotes, are presentations of a character’s or a real person’s exact words. A direct quote begins with a set of double quotation marks before the first word of the quote and ends with double quotation marks at the end of the quote.  The first word of a direct quote is always capitalized. The punctuation that ends the last sentence in the direct quote is always placed inside the ending quotation marks. There may be any number of sentences between the opening quotation marks and the closing quotation marks, but whether the direct quote consists of one sentence or one hundred sentences, one set of double quotation marks is placed at the beginning and one set is placed at the end.  Inner sentences inside a long direct quote do not receive their own quotation marks.

If an attribution phrase, like “he said” or “Dad shouted,” follows the direct quote, the ending punctuation for the last sentence in the quote is a comma if the sentence is declarative, a question mark if the sentence is a question, or an exclamation point if the sentence is exclamatory. The quote’s ending punctuation marks appear inside the closing double quotation marks and the attribution phrase is placed outside the closing quotation marks. A period always follows the attribution phrase. Some examples follow: 

“I want to drive,” my dad said.

“Can I drive?” I asked.

“You can’t drive! You don’t have a license!” my father shouted.

If the attribution phrase is placed before the direct quote in the text, it is set off from the direct quote by a comma. The double quotation marks are placed after the comma before the first word of the quote. The ending punctuation for the final sentence works like it does with an attribution tag at the end of the quote except for declarative sentences. If the attribution phrase appears before a directly quoted declarative sentence, the ending punctuation is a period instead of a comma.  Here is an example:

I asked, “Can I drive?”

My dad said, “I will drive.”

My father shouted, “You can’t drive! You don’t have

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