Eye-witness Accounts

 

If you see a car crash and you tell a friend about it you will use direct speech.
If that friend tells someone else, they will use reported speech to report your words.

Here is an example of direct speech:

 "I was walking home from school at four o'clock and I'd just crossed Highwood Road when I heard a big bang. I turned round and saw a car smashed into the side of a bus. It looked as if the car hadn't stopped at the traffic lights."

Notice how direct speech needs "speech marks" around all the words actually spoken.

Here is an example of reported speech:

 She was walking home from school at four o'clock and she'd just crossed Highwood Road when she heard a big bang. She turned round and saw a car smashed into the side of a bus. She said that it looked as if the car hadn't stopped at the traffic lights.

Notice how "I" has changed to "she".
Notice also that the second example uses the phrase "she said that". This phrase is often a useful way of thinking about reported speech.

Change the following piece into reported speech by starting each sentence with "she said that ..."
Don't forget to change "I" into "she".

 "I ran across to the car, which was on the other side of the road, and looked at the driver. He was white and shivering but he didn't seem seriously hurt.
I recognised him as Mr Marshall who owns the garage next to school."

In this example the tense remains the same in both direct and reported speech: "I ran" becomes "she said that she ran."

In the next example the speaker is using the present tense.

 "I feel faint and cold but I don't think I've hurt anything. My seat belt saved me."

When this is reported the tense must change:

He said that he felt faint and cold but he didn't think he had hurt anything. He said his seat belt had saved him.

Notice how the tense has changed in each case: from "feel" to "felt", from "don't" to "didn't", from "saved" to "had saved."

* Now write an eye-witness account of your own.
It should be something you have seen yourself. Don't forget the punctuation marks. You might use alternative words to said such as:
claimed, protested, insisted, snapped, retorted, urged, sobbed, revealed

* Swap with a friend and rewrite your friend's description in reported speech.

* Look through a daily newspaper and underline examples of reported and direct speech. Rewrite some of the pieces in the opposite form of speech.

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