When you are writing, you will often need to talk about what other people say. There are two ways to do this. The first way is to use quoted speech.
Quoted speech is when you say the exact words that were said, without changing them. We always use quotation marks (") around quoted speech.
Quoted speech is often used in writing, because it's more formal. In speaking, it's more common to use reported speech, rather than repeat the exact words that someone said.
Imagine you are writing about your friend Steve, who said:
"I like watermelon. It's so refreshing!"
We often introduce quoted speech by using 'said'. It is important to know the correct punctuation for this.
Steve said, "I like watermelon. It's so refreshing."
Notice that 'Steve said' is followed by a comma. We always need to put a comma before starting the quoted speech.
We can also reverse the 'Steve said' part.
"I like watermelon. It's so refreshing!" said Steve.
Even though the word 'said' comes after a punctuation mark, it is not a capital letter, because it is not the start of a new sentence.
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