True OR False Quotation marks go around EVERYTHING a speaker says. This sentence is punctuated correctly: “Don’t hit your brother.” begged my mother. When a dialogue is interrupted, begin the second part of the quotation with a capital letter. Ex. “Did you know,” asked Cassandra,”That I have always been afraid of heights? You should start a new paragraph when speakers change.

The Key to GRRREAT Dialogue Sound natural –Pay attention to the way people speak: Sometimes we don’t speak in complete sentences or use slang, etc. –Words can reflect age, emotions, or where a character is from. Don’t over do it! - Writing fewer lines of well-written dialogue is better than trudging through lines and lines of bad dialogue!

Place quotation marks at the beginning and end of a speaker’s exact words. “Which computer game are you playing?” asked Robin. “It’s a new geography game,” Zohra replied.

Commas and periods always go inside the closing quotation marks. “Perhaps you have heard of Pong,” Barbara said. She explained, “It was the first truly successful video game.”

When the speaker’s words are a question or an exclamation, place the question mark or exclamation point inside the closing quotation marks. “Do you remember a company called Atari?” Barbara asked. “What a lot of money that company made!” she exclaimed.

When a quotation begins a sentence, use a comma, question mark, or exclamation point – not a period – to separate it from the rest of the sentence. “Video games for television were developed in the mid-1960s,” Sean added. “Are you ready?” she asked.

Begin a new paragraph every time the speaker changes. “I don’t care if she does find out!” shrieked Penelope. “You never care about anyone but yourself,” spat Richard.

If the second part of a divided quotation is a complete sentence, it should begin with a capital letter. “Students at Harvard created it,” he said. “They played it on the room-size computers of that time.”