By Anonymous (not verified), 4 March, 2026

Grade Level

Mode

Form

Unit Lesson Body

Editing Personal Narratives

After making big changes to improve your personal narrative, you need to make little changes (editing) to correct any remaining errors. You'll look for problems with sentences, punctuation, capitalization, grammar, usage, and spelling. The following activities will help you edit your narrative.

Editing Dialogue for Quotation Marks

Dialogue uses quotation marks. These special marks go before and after the exact words of the speaker.

“Yum,” I said.

Manny’s dad said, “Welcome to the fiesta.”

Periods and commas that follow the speaker’s words always go inside the quotation marks.

“It’s time to change into our costumes,” said Manny. “Follow me.”

Question marks and exclamation marks go inside the quotation marks when they punctuation the dialogue.

“Are you ready for this?” asked Manny.

“Wow!” I said.

Watch the video "Punctuating Dialogue."

Hide video

Insert quotation marks.

Insert quotation marks before and after the speaker’s words. Use the examples on this page for help. (Make a copy of this Google doc or download a Word template.) The first one has been done for you.

Quotes

Edit your dialogue.

Read your essay, paying attention to your dialogue. Make sure you use quotation marks and that they are in the correct place.

Teaching Tip

In one special case, punctuation should go outside the quotation marks. This occurs when a question mark or an exclamation point is used to punctuate the sentence, rather than the quotation. Note the difference in these examples:

“Will we have turkey and apples?” asked Trev.

Did you hear Mom say, “We’re out of pickles”?

Editing Verb Tenses

The tense of a verb tells when an action takes place. Actions in personal narratives take place in the past, so you should use the past tense of verbs most of the time. The past tense is usually formed by adding -ed to the present tense verb.

The present tense of a verb states action that is happening now.

We talk about dancing. I smile and laugh.

The past tense of a verb states an action that happened in the past.

We talked about dancing. I smiled and laughed.

The future tense of a verb states an action that will take place in the future. (It is formed by using will or shall before the verb.)

We will talk about dancing. I will smile and laugh.

Change the verb tense.

Rewrite the following sentences, changing the present and future tense verbs to the past tense. (Make a copy of this Google doc or download a Word template.) The first one has been done for you.

I pick an outfit to wear.
I picked an outfit to wear.
I dribble the basketball.
I dribbled the basketball.
Frank the dog will fetch a stick.
Frank the dog fetched a stick.
We search for the nearest park.
We searched for the nearest park.
We will play games and race around the trees.
We played games and raced around the trees.

Check your verbs tenses.

Read your essay. Make sure any actions that happened in the past have past-tense verbs. Change the tenses as needed.

Editing in Action

When you edit, you check to make sure your essay is correct.

Paragraph Before Edits
Quotation marks were added and a tense was corrected.
Paragraph After Edits

Edit with a checklist.

Read each line. When you can answer each question with a yes, check it off. Make a copy of this Google doc or download a Word template.

Checking Grammar and Usage

Is the correct verb tense used with actions?
Are words used correctly (your/you’re, their/they’re, its/it’s)?
Do subjects and verbs agree in number? (Manny and I were laughing, not Manny and I was laughing.)
Are all my sentences complete (no fragments or run-ons)?

Checking Capitalization, Punctuation, and Spelling

Is the first word in each sentence capitalized?
Are proper names of people, places, and things capitalized?
Do commas and quotation marks set off dialogue?
Are all my words spelled correctly?

Publishing Personal Narratives

When you publish your personal narrative, you make it public, sharing it with others. First, you need to make a clean final copy of your work. Then you should find ways to share what you have written with classmates, your teacher, your family, and your friends.

Publishing a Final Copy

Create a final copy of your writing.

Include your editing changes and read over your work a final time. (If you are working on a computer, spell check your work.) Make a copy of this Google doc or download a Word template.

(Answers will vary.)