Appendix: Punctuating Dialogue
“Do you think this fellow Hynes, said Mr. McCarthy, has any idea
what he’s talking about?”The reason it’s incorrect is that there are only two sets of quotation marks,
one at the beginning of the quotation and one at the end, when there should
be four sets of quotation marks: one at the beginning, a second one just
before the dialogue tag, a third one right after the dialogue tag, and a fourth
at the end, as shown below:“Do you think this fellow Hynes,” said Mr. McCarthy, “has any
idea what he’s talking about?”Sometimes a dialogue tag comes in the middle of the quoted sentence;
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quotation mark, the dialogue tag is followed by a comma, and the second
half of the sentence begins with a quotation mark and a lowercase letter, as
shown below:“I have a feeling,” said Mr. Faulkner, “that this fellow Hynes is not
paying any attention to us.”However, if a dialogue tag appears between two FRPSOHWH sentences, then it
is followed by a period, and the second sentence starts with a capital letter:“There’s no reason for him to listen to us,” said Mr. McCarthy.
“YRX¶YHEHHQGHDGIRU¿IW\\HDUVDQG,¶PIDPRXVO\UHFOXVLYH ́There are a couple of additional rules for dialogue: Punctuation always
appears inside the quotation marks, and when the dialogue tag appears after
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from the tag with a comma, a question mark, or an exclamation point but never
with a period. Thus, the following quotations are punctuated correctly:“That’s no excuse,” said Mr. Faulkner.“What can you do with a young fellow like that?” said
Mr. McCarthy.