Punctuate Dialogue, Quotations, and Compound Sentences

Apply capitalization, commas, quotation marks, title conventions, apostrophes, and commas before coordinating conjunctions.

How the lesson starts: Punctuate Dialogue, Quotations, and Compound Sentences

Penny's comic studio
Penny the parrot draws comics. Her characters talk in speech bubbles. But now Penny is writing a chapter book. No bubbles allowed! Readers need little marks to know who is talking.
Bubbles become quotes
Here's Kai's bubble as a book sentence. Kai said, I found it. A comma follows said. Quotation marks hug the exact words. The end mark sits inside the quotation marks.
Which mark?
Pick the mark by what the words do. A telling quote with the speaker after gets a comma. A question gets a question mark. A shout gets an exclamation mark. Ben explained, blank, the lake is frozen. After explained comes a comma!