the strictures of any widely recognized
grammar handbook or
dictionary to produce an acceptable standard English. It is always a matter of judgment on the part of each writer to decide whether that dialect is suitable for the writing she or he is doing at the moment. See
colloquial.Dialogue. Recording others speech directly is called writing in dialogue.
Conventionally,
quotation marks are used to indicate directly recorded speed “‘Hello,’
he said In this example, the directly quoted speech is contained in single quotes because examples in this book are contained in double quotes. Normally, dialogue
appears in double quotes, while direct speech recorded within a dialogue is put in single quotes, as in the example. Directly quoted speech can also be indented and made a
block quotation to indicate that the words of someone other than the author are being reported The politician said
I am,
as usual, confused on this point, but I would say that it is possible. Actually, I’m not sure that it is possible, but I am guessing that it is. It’s most probably probable.
The news conference ended shortly thereafter.”
Directly reported speech within an indented block appears in double quotes, but the block itself has no quotes around it. Normally the reported speech of each person who takes part in the dialogue being recorded is also set o by beginning anew iparagraph:iIt was a dark and stormy night.
Thunder crashed, and the rain poured down.
“Wow,” Chris said, “I’m scared.”
“Don’t worry replied Sandy, Were safe here.”
However, to save space in non ction writing, some briefer dialogues are reported without such paragraphing.
Note that
contractions appear in the last example. Such less formal elements are common in dialogues, which are, after all,
representations of more colloquial,informal, dialectic speech, rather than formal, standard writing. Dialogue—real or invented—thus presents the writer an opportunity to relax a formal style and introduce into a document more conversational elements and all the variants they entail. See
dialect, standard English, and
quotation.Dialogue can also be reported less directly and therefore without quotation marks or other clear markers of speakers and speeches He said that he was scared This is called
“indirect quotation.”Share with your friends: 
