English Toolkit

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22.2Setting out dialogue
TYPICAL ERROR 'Listen to me for a moment,' said James. 'I'm going away for a while.' 'Will you be back tomorrow?' 'No, not that soon.' 'Next week?' 'Not even then. You see, I’m going to see the king.'
CORRECTION

  • 'Listen to me for a moment,' said James. 'I'm going away for a while.'
  • 'Will you be back tomorrow?'
  • 'No, not that soon.'
  • 'Next week?'
  • 'Not even then. You see, I'm going to see the king.'

EXPLANATION Note that if more than one person is speaking, we treat what each speaker says as a paragraph. Thus, when the first speaker has finished speaking, we write what the second speaker says on a different line. This is the case even if each speaker says only one word.

Continue punctuating the following passage, making sure that you start a new line each time there is a change of speaker. You will also need to add missing inverted commas.
'But I don't want to go mad, Alice remarked. Oh, you can't help that, said the Cat. We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad. How do you know I'm mad? said Alice. You must be, said the Cat, or you wouldn't have come here.
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