How to Write Dialogue in an Essay

By: Kamlesh Manchanda

June 13, 2023

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Dialogue is defined as a literary technique which writers use to depict a conversation between two or more people. Dialogue is a device that is employed in all kinds of fiction, may be movie, plays or essays. It is important not to confuse dialogue with quotations from any outside source.

Dialogue is largely made up to create a more visual and dramatic effect. Direct quotes can be verified through citations. Quotation marks are used with quoting from source as well as to mark dialogue in an essay but the conventions around two changes. As such, it is very important to know the difference between the two.

Dialogue should be enclosed within quotation marks. Every new line of dialogue is indented, and new paragraph should be started every time, a new person is speaking. It should be concise. Long passages of dialogue might seem like a good way to get information across, but they can be tedious for the reader.

Basic Dialogue Rules – Some of the common and universal rules for writing dialogue in any essay.

Each speaker gets a new paragraph.
Each paragraph is indented.

Punctuation for what is said goes inside the quotation marks.
Long speeches with several paragraphs have no end quotations.
Use single quotes if person speaking is quoting someone else.

Skip the small talk and focus on important information only.

Types of Dialogues

While choosing how to convey the words of characters in an essay for the readers, there are two options: active and passive dialogue. Active dialogue includes quotes and quotation marks, while passive dialogue implies paraphrasing of the quotes and telling them from the narrator himself.

Format a Dialogue

The most intriguing part of writing a dialogue – punctuation and formatting. When stumble upon a dialogue in any narrative essay, punctuation might seem to have a lot of different styles, which is confusing. Of course, common errors of English are still relevant here, but dialogues have evolved their own punctuation rules.

There are three simple steps to follow in order to format dialogue correctly in an essay:

-In a dialogue, commas, exclamation marks and question marks to be put inside the quotation marks

-Commas to be put to set off dialogue tags, such as “he said” or “she exclaimed”

-If quotation is at the end of the sentence, put a period inside the quotation marks as well

Dialogue is a big part of movies, novels, plays etc. It is to be kept in mind that when it comes to essay writing, a dialogue only really appears in one type of essay, the narrative essay. A narrative essay differs from other kinds of essay writing. Other types of essays usually aim to make a claim about something. It is an essay that is used to relate stories and experiences to the reader. As such, it is much more like a story in nature.

In Narrative essays, dialogue is used as a device – much like written fiction. They add depth, tension and character development to non fiction writing. It also helps move the story along. As it is reported speech, it would be unlikely to remember all the details; so recreate them from memory, remember to use the words, tones and emotions that report it in the correct flavour. Readers will trust realistic dialogue that capture the situation.

Creating Dialogue That’s Realistic and Effective – Dialogue is hard to get right. For something we do and hear every day, knowing what to make characters say in order to move the plot forward and increase intrigue isn’t easy. But that’s why it has been broken down into easy steps for writing dialogue.

Here are some of the best tips for writing dialogue that feels real but is also effective for moving essay forward:

1. Say it out loud first – One of the easiest and best ways to see if dialogue sounds good is to read it out loud, especially if writing a genre that would benefit from such an approach.

2 – Get rid of the small talk – Readers don’t care about what your characters had for dinner last night—unless that dinner had been poisoned and is now seeping into their bloodstream, impacting their immediate danger.

3 – Keep it brief and impactful – Dialogue in essays is not meant to read in the way we actually speak—not full conversations, at least. If it did, each essay would be exceptionally longer, due in part to the fact that humans often say a lot of pointless things.

4 – Give each character a unique way of speaking – Not everyone speaks in the same way and have a specific “flow” to sentences and we all have favourite words we prefer to use.

Dialogue is an indispensable part of every essay and one of the most important literary devices in an author’s playbook. When written well, dialogue can help create convincing characters, revealing important information about their histories, motivations, strengths and shortcomings.

Good dialogue does not just bring characters to life; it peels back their layers. All the human beings that make us love them, root for them, hate them. And character development is just one of the prominent purposes of dialogue.

By: Kamlesh Manchanda

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