Yesterday we talked about using a comma at the end of a quotation, inside the quotation marks, just before the speech tag. Look at the comma in this example:
“We are late for school,” said Mom.
In the sentence above, We are late for school is a statement. Normally we end a statement with a period, but because this statement is someone’s words, we use a comma to end the statement, close the quote with quotation marks, and then add the speech tag – said Mom.
If the quoted words are an exclamation or a question, we do not end the quote with a comma. Look at these sentence examples:
Hurry! We are late for school!” Mom shouted.
“Do you want to get marked tardy again?” she asked.
In the first sentence, Mom is excited and urgent, and we end her quoted words with an exclamation point – just inside the quotation marks.
In the second sentence, Mom is asking a question. We end her spoken question with a question mark just before the quotation marks.
In each sentence, the speech tag follows the quotation marks.
Remember: Use a comma to end a quotation when the spoken words are a statement. Use an exclamation point or a question mark to end a quotation that is being exclaimed or asked. The end punctuation always goes inside the quotation marks to end the person’s spoken words.