punctuation - He said "she is pretty"

How to correctly punctuate this?

He said "she is pretty".

Is a comma a must after 'said'? Do we need to make 's' in 'she' capitalized?

Answer

There are two common styles, referred to as "American" and "British" though each is found in each place.

In both, ?, :, and ! is always inside if it belongs to the quoted part, outside if it belongs to the use itself:

He said, “She is pretty?” (He inflected it as a question).

He said, “She is pretty”? (He may have said it, I the writer am asking).

For commas and periods, American style always puts the period inside the quotes:

He said, “She is pretty.”

British style puts it in the quotes if it was part of the quote:

He said, “She is pretty.” (And he finished his sentence with that)

He said, “She is pretty”. (And may have gone on to say more in that sentence).

Some who favour American style favour British style in technical contexts where it may be more important to make sure the reader knows if the period is part of the quoted text (e.g. it could make a big difference if quoting computer code).

Less common styles include play format:

He said: She is pretty.

Play format with quotes:

He said: “She is pretty.” (period may follow British or American rules.

And James Joyce style:

— She is pretty.

Which as much as I quite like it, you only gets to use if you'r James Joyce, and few editors will put up with from anyone else.

You would normally capitalise within the quotes. If you want to signify that something had gone before within the same sentence, then you might use ellipses:

He said, “…she is pretty”.

But not if running a quote into a sentence as in:

He described her as “pretty” and I had to agree.

Left and right quotes like “ and ” should be favoured where possible, but informal contexts can tolerate straight quote like ". I would normally use " here without worry, but for this particular post being on the topic of quotation marks.