Dialogue Capitalization

Dialogue: Capital Letters and Periods

Bringing it all together

Multiple Choice

Warm Up Question

Which sentence is has the correct quotation marks and comma?

• "Yesterday was a beautiful day" said Macey.

• "What's for lunch?," asked Quinn.

• Connie spoke up, "Don't forget about our reward!"

Adding Capital Letters

Like commas, there are a few new rules.

Rule One

The first word in a quotation should be capitalized.*

"Pizza is my favorite food," explained Duke.

Mark replied, "But do you also like tacos?"

Multiple Choice

Which sentence is NOT capitalized correctly?

• Derrick said, "north side is a nice school."

• Casey said, "Let's go to the park.

• "Harry Potter is better than Percy Jackson," said Phil.

Rule Two

Don't capitalize the dialogue tag unless it begins the sentence.

"The bus is late again," he said.

He said, "The bus is late again."

Multiple Choice

Which sentence is capitalized correctly?

• "When is lunch?" Asked Tom.

• She said, "Let's play basketball."

• dave screamed, "Leave me alone!

Adding Periods

- If the quotation is at the end of the sentence, put the period inside the quotation mark.

- Don't use if there is a question mark or exclamation point.

James replied, "I am all finished with my work."

Chris said, "Last night I went to bed early."

Multiple Choice

Which sentence has the period in the correct place?

• Patrick asked, "What time is it?".

• J.C. said, "Next week is Christmas."

• Nora said, "My work is finished here".

Are you a master of dialogue?

See if you can use all of the rules to answer the next three questions correctly!

Multiple Choice

Select the correct answer.

• "What a beautiful day!", said Ms. Wright.
• "What a beautiful day!" said Ms. Wright.
• "What a beautiful day! said Ms. Wright."
• "What a beautiful day! said" Ms. Wright.

Multiple Choice

Which sentence uses dialogue and punctuation correctly?

• The mother remarked, "Don't forget to clean your room!"

• The mother remarked "Don't forget to clean your room!"

• The mother remarked, "don't forget to clean your room!"

• The mother remarked", Don't forget to clean your room!"

Multiple Choice

Choose the sentence that uses quotation marks correctly.

• Polly shouted, "I want a cracker!"
• Polly shouted! "I want a cracker."
• Polly shouted, "I want a cracker"!
• "Polly shouted," I want a cracker!

Poll

Are you ready to start using dialogue in your writing?

• I am ready to go!

• I think I should be able to do this.

• I'll probably need some help.

• Dialogue? What's that?