Confused about capitalization in speech marks?

femur61 · 11-10-2015 09:57AM #1

I have got connflicting advice on the internet and books regarding the correct way to use quotation marks when someone is speaking. Below is the part of speech speech I am confused about.

Mary said, Lets for a walk.'

or is it

Mary said, 'lets go a walk.'

I think I got this one right.

'Lets go a walk,' Mary said taking a deep breath of air, 'its a fresh crisp morning.'

New Home · 11-10-2015 10:16AM

As far as I know, it should be

Mary said, 'Let's go for a walk.'

and

'Let's go a walk,' Mary said, taking a deep breath of air, 'it's a fresh crisp morning.'

or even

'Let's go a walk!' Mary said, taking a deep breath of air, 'It's a fresh crisp morning.'

Usually, the speech between quotation marks is considered as a new/separate sentence, so it should start with a capital letter.

TheGlitchKing · 15-10-2015 08:05PM

Mary said, "Let's go for a walk."

Using double or single quotations is up to you though, I prefer double because they stand out better.
Writing that in reverse is also cleaner.

"Let's go for a walk," Mary said.

Unless you have an action before hand.

Opening the door, Mary turned and said, "Let's go for a walk."

"Let's go for a walk," Mary said, opening the door.

For speech always capitalize within quotations. If it isn't speech and just a quote then don't capitalize.

Das Kitty · 16-10-2015 10:15AM

New Home wrote: »

Mary said, 'Let's go for a walk.'

Correct

'Let's go a walk,' Mary said, taking a deep breath of air, 'it's a fresh crisp morning.'

or even

'Let's go a walk!' Mary said, taking a deep breath of air, 'It's a fresh crisp morning.'

Neither of these are fully correct. If you take out the speech tags you get,

Let's go for a walk. It's a fresh crisp morning.

which are two independent clauses. They can only be separated by a full stop (or semi colon, but let's not go there with speech tags), and never a comma.

So it has to be (notice the full stop): "Let's go for a walk," Mary said. "It's a fresh crisp morning."

Usually, the speech between quotation marks is considered as a new/separate sentence, so it should start with a capital letter.

Not necessarily. You may want to use your speech tag in the middle of a sentence for example, pacing of the dialogue.

"We could go for a walk," Mary said, "but it's a rotten old morning."

"You see, Watson," said Holmes, pressing tobacco into his pipe, "we must not assume that the dead man is in fact dead."

Dialogue and speech tagging is a tricky thing to get right, but it's worth spending time on, IMO.

http://theeditorsblog.net/2010/12/08/punctuation-in-dialogue/

Confused about capitalization in speech marks?

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