Study Guide on Quotation Marks 1) Quotation marks always come in pairs and are used to set off a speaker’s exact words. 2) Begin quotations with a capital letter. 3) Commas are used to set off/separate the exact words of a speaker from the rest of the sentence. 4) If the quote comes before the person who spoke and tells something, place a comma after the quote, before the closing quotation mark. Example: “Today we are going to study about the water cycle,” said the teacher. 5) If the quote comes after the person who spoke and tells something, place a comma after the person who spoke, before the opening quotation mark. Example: Caitlyn said, “We use water for so many things.” 6) If the quote comes before the speaker and asks something, then a question mark is used in place of the comma. Example: “Why don’t we ever run out of water?” Ben asked. 7) If the quote comes after the person who spoke and asks something, place the comma after the person who spoke. Example: Mrs. Reed responded, “Why don’t you read about it in your science book?” 8) If the quote uses strong emotion, use an exclamation mark in place of the comma. Example: “It would be terrible if we did run out of water!” Mary exclaimed. 9) If the quote comes after the person who spoke and uses strong emotion, place the comma after the person who spoke. Example: Matthew added, “With evaporation, condensation, and precipitation occurring all the time, we will never run out of water!” 10) A quote separated by the person who spoke is called a split quotation. Begin the first part of a split quotation with a capital letter, and end with a comma. Place a comma after the person who spoke and begin the second part of a split quotation with a lower case letter. Enclose both parts of the split quotation with quotation marks. Example: “Class,” the teacher explained, “the water cycle provides us with the water we need and it never ends.” 11) Whenever a new speaker speaks, start a new paragraph. 12) Go to my website, click on “Gaga Over Grammar,” then click on the folder “Using Quotation Marks,” watch the video by Learn Zillion, and finally click on the link “Practice Using Commas in Quotes.” .