A direct quotation is the quoting of someone else’s words. When you write someone else’s words into your own document, you must place quotation marks around those quoted words. Quotation marks always come in a set of two.
Here is a sentence I might write into an essay. Notice how I used quotation marks around the words of my mother.
My mother once told me, “Don’t be in a hurry to be an adult; you’re only a child for a short time.”
The quotation marks go around the exact words that my mother said to me. One set of quotation marks goes at the front of the quotation. The other set of quotation marks goes at the end of the quotation.
When we write a quotation, we usually tell the reader who said the quoted words. The words that tell us who is speaking are called a “speech tag.” Look at each of these examples below. Can you see which part of the sentence is the quotation and which part is the speech tag?
“Look out!” Dad shouted.
“An apple a day keeps the doctor away,” said my grandmother.
“I’ll help you,” Jim said, “as soon as I finish this math assignment.”
Use quotation marks at the beginning and at the end of any one else’s words when you put those words into your own writing.