1) Reported speech, also called indirect speech, reports what a speaker said without using their exact words. Common verbs used are "said", "told", and "mentioned" to indicate it is reported information. 2) When reporting a question, the verb should be in simple past tense like "asked". Questions end with a period, not a question mark. Auxiliary verbs like "do" and "does" are not used. 3) Certain words like pronouns, adverbs of time and place are changed or "backshifted" in reported speech, such as changing "today" to "that day" or "now" to "then".