Reported speech

Reported speech, also called indirect speech, tells the reader what someone said without quoting their exact words or using speech marks, as in she said she would wait. It usually involves changes in tense and pronouns and a reporting verb such as said, asked or explained. Reported speech is more compact than direct speech.

It suits summarising conversations quickly or keeping the pace moving without dwelling on every word. Part of controlling narrative pace and focus is knowing when to use direct speech for immediacy and when to use reported speech for economy.

In your own writing, reported speech lets you summarise talk efficiently and vary how you present conversation. This supports good pacing. In the reading paper, notice whether a writer chooses direct or reported speech.

This can support a point about closeness, pace or emphasis. In the summary task especially, turning quoted speech into your own reported wording is a useful skill for condensing information accurately.

Instead of quoting a long argument, a writer might simply state that she told him the plan had failed and there was nothing left to do. This keeps the pace brisk.

Change the exact words into your own, adjusting tense and pronouns and using a reporting verb, without speech marks. Choose reported speech when you want to summarise or keep the pace quick, and direct speech when you want immediacy. In analysis, explain why a writer prefers one or the other at a given moment.

Link the choice to pace or emphasis.

You may also find writing formats and annotated model responses useful. Next, visit our skills guides for IGCSE English to see terms like this used in real answers. Our IGCSE English tuition page explains how lessons run. When you are ready, the paid one-hour trial is the first step.