How do you quote when someone is speaking?

Quoting a portion of dialogue: If you quote something a character says, use double quotation marks on the outside ends of the quotation to indicate that you are quoting a portion of the text. Use single quotation marks inside the double quotation marks to indicate that someone is speaking. “‘Thou art not my child!

How do you indicate a quote?

Proper Punctuation QuotesIf you start by telling who said it, use a comma and then the first quotation mark. If you put the quote first and then tell who said it, use a comma at the end of the sentence, and then the second quotation mark. Punctuation always goes inside the quotation marks if it is a direct quote.

Should there always be a comma before a quote?

As a general rule, you should use a comma to introduce quoted material or dialogue. That’s because in most types of dialogue, the quoted material stands apart from the surrounding text. In grammatical terms, it’s “syntactically independent.”

What do brackets around a word mean?

When writers insert or alter words in a direct quotation, square brackets—[ ]—are placed around the change. The brackets, always used in pairs, enclose words intended to clarify meaning, provide a brief explanation, or to help integrate the quote into the writer’s sentence.