1. Punctuating Dialogue

2. Terms
• Dialogue: a written conversation
• Tag lines: words that identify the speaker

3. Tag line before the quote
• Put a comma after the tag line.
• Put the quotation in quotation marks.
(Capitalize the first word in the sentence and
keep end punctuation within the quotation
marks.)
• Example: Crooks said well you been takin’ ‘em
out of the nest all the time. I wonder the old
lady don’t move ‘em someplace else.

4. Example
• Crooks said, “Well you been takin’ ‘em out of
the nest all the time. I wonder the old lady
don’t move ‘em someplace else.”

5. Tag line after the quote
• Put the quote in quotation marks.
• Replace the period with a comma (within the
quotation marks) and put a period after the
tag line.
Example: George won’t do nothing like that he
repeated
• If the end punctuation is ? or !, do not replace
it with a comma.
Example: What? he demanded.

6. Examples
• “George won’t do nothing like that,” he
repeated
• “What?” he demanded.

7. Tag line in the middle of the quote
Tag line splits two separate sentences of the
quote:
• Put a comma at the end of the first part of the
sentence (within the quotation marks).
• Put a period after the tagline and quotation
marks around the remainder of the quote
(including end punctuation).
Example: I was just supposing he said George
ain’t hurt. He’s all right.

8. Example
• “I was just supposing,” he said. “George ain’t
hurt. He’s all right.”

9. Tag line in the middle of the quote
Tag line splits one sentence of the quote:
• Put a comma at the end of the first part
(within the quotation marks).
• Put a comma after the tagline and quotation
marks around the rest of the quote (including
the end punctuation).
Example: Well said George we’ll have a big
vegetable garden and a rabbit hutch and
chickens.

10. Example
• “Well,” said George, “we’ll have a big
vegetable garden and a rabbit hutch and
chickens.”

11. Additional Notes:
• Start a new paragraph each time the speaker
changes.
• Sometimes if a dialogue is lengthy, you may
not need a tag line each time a person speaks.
Sometimes the back and forth of a
conversation makes the speaker evident.