I need help with quotations and punctuation [duplicate]

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How do I punctuate when using quotes?

“There were more?” Asked Wendy.

or;

"There were more," asked Wendy?

"He was amazing!" Exclaimed Billy.

or;

"He was amazing," exclaimed Billy!

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1 Answer
1

Although the first version in each case is closer to being appropriate, neither is completely correct.

The sentences should be formatted as follows:

"There were more?" asked Wendy.

"He was amazing!" exclaimed Billy.

Although question and exclamation marks normally end a sentence, if they come before a quotation mark in the middle of mixed dialogue where the sentence continues, then the sentence does not actually end and there shouldn't be a capital letter indicating it does.

Therefore, the next word has its initial letter in lowercase. (Unless, of course, it's a proper name or some other word that would have a capital letter regardless of its position in any sentence.)

You may find Beth Hill's blog post "Punctuation in Dialogue" to be useful. It addresses this and similar issues.