Speech Marks and Direct Speech

When we write down the exact words that someone says, it’s called direct speech, and we use speech marks to show where those words begin and end. Speech marks look like this: ” ” or ‘ ‘ and go around the spoken words. For example: “I can’t find my bag,” said Tom. Notice that the punctuation at the end of the spoken words goes inside the speech marks. If the sentence continues after the speech, you use a comma — not a full stop — before the closing speech marks. The part that tells us who is speaking and how they said it is called a reporting clause (e.g. ‘said Tom’, ‘whispered Mia’, ‘shouted the teacher’). Using different verbs in your reporting clause — like muttered, exclaimed, replied or cried — makes your writing much more interesting and varied.