Grammar! (Like a pro!)

Quotation marks

"Why study quotation marks?" you ask. "Those are easy!"

"Because," I say, a twinkle in my eye, "There are certain rules that a lot of people get wrong."

 "Oh."

Quotation marks can be used for a variety of things. The most common, however, is tagging a speech, which is what we will focus on. An example:

"Why are there so many examples?" Becky asked, infuriated.

Notice how the question mark goes inside the quotation. This is true for all punctuation.

By the way, the first letter of a quotation is always capitalized, unless you are interrupting the sentence. For example:

 "I sure could go for some pizza right now," Larry said, "as my stomach is screaming."

But what about the first letters of the words after the quotation? Do they need capitalized? Or will they just sit there, feeling unimportant and sad like a forgotten lunch? 

Never fear, the explanation is here! If the words are explanatory, such as "he said" or "she said" or "they said", then there is no need to capitalize the first letter. For instance:

Steve placed his head in his hands. "Why is there no pizza?" he sobbed.

Names, of course, have to be capitalized no matter what. They're important, and must shout out their importance. 'I' is always capitalized, as well, as it takes the place of a name.