Direct and Indirect Speech Rules

What is Direct Speech?

Direct speech repeats or quotes the expressed or the words spoken. When we use direct speech, we place the words spoken between the quotation marks (“ First-person”). Direct speech is directly conveyed either in speech or in writing.

Examples of Direct Speech

He said, “I will work hard to succeed.” The Commander said, “We will defeat all the enemies.”

What is Indirect Speech?

Indirect speech or Reported speech is usually used to talk about the past, so we normally change the tense of the words spoken into. We use reporting verbs like ‘tell’, ‘say’, ‘ask’ and we can use the word ‘that’ to introduce the reported in place of (“ ”) Direct and Indirect speech also introduces the concept of ‘Reported speech’ and ‘Reported Verb’.

Examples of Indirect Speech

He said that he will work hard to succeed. The Commander said that they will defeat all the enemies.

Reported Speech and Reported Verb

Both direct and indirect speech has two parts which are complete sentences in themselves. They are:

Reported speech is more of ‘Mood/ Tone’ of a speaker. The reported speech can be Assertive/Declarative, Imperative, Interrogative, and Exclamatory.

Reported verb is the tense in which the sentence is spoken. It can be ‘Past’, ‘present’, ‘Future’.

Example: He said to me, “I will go there tomorrow.” In the above example,

Reporting verb – Who said to whom.

‘He said to me’: it is reporting verb

Reported speech –The exact words spoken, put within inverted commas “_______”.

I will go there tomorrow-: it is reported speech

An assertive/declarative sentence is one that states a general fact, a habitual action, or a universal truth.  For example, ‘Today is Wednesday.’

An imperative sentence is used to give a command or make a request. Unlike the other three types of sentences, imperative sentences do not always require a subject; they can start with a verb. For example, ‘Turn off the lights and fans when you leave the class.’

An interrogative sentence asks a question. For example, ‘Where do you stay?’

An exclamatory sentence expresses sudden emotions or feelings. For example, ‘What a wonderful sight!’

How to Convert Between English Grammar Direct and Indirect Speech?

When converting speech from direct to indirect, you must change the present tense verbs to the past tense. 

Here’s an easy way to remember them using direct and indirect speech rules.

Rule #1

Direct Speech	Indirect Speech
Present Simple Tense do /does V1	Past Simple Tense  did + V1 V2
Present Progressive Tense is/am/are + V4	Past Progressive Tense was /were + V4
Present Perfect Tense has /have + V3	Past Perfect Tense had + V3
Present Perfect Progressive has been /have been + V4	Past Perfect Progressive had been + V4
Past Simple Tense did + V1 V2	Past Perfect Tense had + V3
Past Perfect Tense had + V3	Past Perfect Tense had + V3
Past Perfect Progressive had been + V4	Past Perfect Progressive had been + V4
Future Simple Tense will + V1	would + V1
Future Progressive Tense will be + V4	would be + V4
Future Perfect Tense will have + V3	would have + V3
Future Perfect Progressive will have been + V4	would have been + V4

Rule #2: If the reporting verb is given in present or future tense, then there shall be no change in the tense of reported speech in direct and indirect speech rules.

Reported Verb	Reported Speech
Subject	First person (I, we) Changes according to the subject of the reported verb
Object	Second person (you) Changes according to the object of the reported verb
No Change	Third person (he, she, it, they) No change

Example:

He said,” I will go.“

“I” will change according to the subject of the reported verb that is “he”

So in place of “I“, “he” will be used for Indirect speech.

Rule #3

Learn about the direct indirect speech rules below!

Direct Speech	Indirect Speech
Direct and Indirect Speech examples
He had said to me, “We play.”	He had said to me that they played.
He had said to me, “We are playing.”	He had said to me that they were playing.
He had said to me, “We have played.”	He had said to me that they had played.
He had said to me, “We have been playing.”	He had said to me that they had been playing.
He had said to me, “We played.”	He had said to me that they had played.
He had said to me, “We were playing.”	He had said to me that they had been playing.
He had said to me, “We had played.”	He had said to me that they had played.
He had said to me, “We had been playing.”	He had said to me that they had been playing.

Rule #4: Changing Certain Words

Use of Direct and Indirect Speech in Different Types of Sentences

Here are tips on how to use Direct and Indirect Speech in different sentences form using direct indirect rules.

Interrogative Sentences

Those sentences, which ask questions, are called interrogative sentences. Every interrogative sentence ends at a sign of interrogation.

Example:

Do you live here?

Have you ever watched the Terminator III movie?

Is it raining?

To convert interrogative sentences into Indirect Speech, follow the following rules along with the above-mentioned rules:

Reporting Verb said to is changed into asked.

If reporting speech is having reporting verb at it its start, then if is used in place of that.

If the reporting speech is having interrogative words like who, when, how, why, when then neither if is used nor any other word is added.

Full Stop is placed at the end of the sentence instead of the mark of interrogation.

Direct Speech	Indirect Speech
Direct and Indirect Speech examples
I said to her, “When do you do your homework?”	I asked her when she did her homework.
We said to him, “Are you ill?”	We asked him if he was ill.
You said to me, “Have you read the articles?”	You asked me if I had read the article.
He said to her, “Will you go to the Peshawar Radio Station?”	He asked her if she would go to the Peshawar Radio Station.
She says, “Who is he?”	She asked who he was.
Rashid says to me, “Why are you late?”	Rashid said to me why I was late.

Exclamatory Sentence

Those sentences, which express our feelings and emotions, are called exclamatory sentences. Mark of exclamation is used at the end of an exclamatory sentence.

Example:

Hurray! We have won the match.

Alas! He failed the test.

How beautiful that dog is!

What a marvellous personality you are!

To change exclamatory sentences into Indirect Speech using direct indirect rules, follow the following rules along with the above-mentioned rules:

In case, there is an interjection i.e., alas, aha, hurray, aha etc in the reported speech, then they are omitted along with the sign of exclamation using reported speech rules.

Reporting verb i.e. said is always replaced with exclaimed with joy, exclaimed with sorrow, exclaimed joyfully, exclaimed sorrowfully or exclaimed with great wonder or sorrow.

In case, there is what or how at the beginning of the reported speech, then they are replaced with very or very great.

In an indirect sentence, the exclamatory sentence becomes an assertive sentence.( a sentence that states a fact.)

Direct Speech	Indirect Speech
Direct and Indirect Speech examples
He said, “Hurray! I have won the match.”	He exclaimed with great joy that he had won the match.
She said, “Alas! My brother failed the test.”	She exclaimed with great sorrow that her brother had failed the test.
They said, “What a beautiful house this is!”	They exclaimed that that house was very beautiful.
I said, “How lucky I am!”	I said that I was very lucky.
You said to him, “What a beautiful drama you are writing!	You said to him in great wonder that he was writing a beautiful drama.

Optative Sentence

Those sentences, which express hope, prayer, or wish, are called optative sentences. Usually, there is a mark of exclamation at the end of an optative sentence.

Example:

May you succeed in the test!

May you get well soon!

Would that I were rich!

To change optative sentences in direct to indirect speech, follow the following rules along with the above-mentioned rules:

In case, the reported speech starts with the word may, then the reporting verb said is replaced with the word prayed.

In case, the reported speech starts with the word would, then the reporting verb said is replaced with the word wished.

May is changed to might.

Mark of exclamation is omitted.

In Indirect Speech, the optative sentences become assertive sentences.

Direct Speech	Indirect Speech
Example:
He said to me, “May you live long!”	He prayed that I might live long.
My mother said to me, “May you succeed in the test!”	My mother prayed that I might succeed in the test.
She said, “Would that I were rich!”	She wished she were rich.
I said to him, “Would that you were here on Sunday!”	I wished he had been here on Sunday.
You said, “I pray you find your camera!”	You prayed that I might find my lost camera.

 

Smart Narratives Tutorial - Power BI VIII

Create smart narrative summaries

The smart narrative visualization helps you provide a quick text summary of visuals and reports. It provides relevant innovative insights that you can customize.

Use smart narrative summaries in your reports to address key takeaways, to point out trends, and to edit the language and format for a specific audience. When you add a live Power BI report page to PowerPoint, instead of pasting a screenshot of your report's key takeaways, you can add narratives that update with every refresh. Your audience can use the summaries to understand the data, get to key points faster, and explain the data to others.

Get started

To follow along in Power BI Desktop, download the sample online-sales scenario dataset.

To follow along in the Power BI service, download the sample. Go to the workspace where you want to save the sample, and select Upload. To create a smart narrative for a page or for a visual, you need to open the sample in Edit mode.

Smart narrative for a page

On the Products page of the report, you see it already has a smart narrative visual. You can recreate it.

Delete the smart narrative visual.

Select the report canvas, then in the Visualizations pane, select the Smart narrative icon to automatically generate a summary.

You see a narrative that's based on all of the visuals on the page. For example, in the sample file, smart narratives can automatically generate a summary of the report's visuals that address revenue, website visits, and sales. Power BI automatically analyzes trends to show that revenue and visits have both grown. It even calculates growth, which in this case is 72 percent.

Smart narrative for a visual

Right-click the visual and select Summarize.

You can choose to pin the summary to the report page.

For example, the Transactions page in the sample file has a summary of the scatter chart that shows various transactions. Power BI analyzes the data and shows which city or region has the highest revenue per transaction and the highest number of transactions. The smart narrative also shows the expected range of values for these metrics. You see that most cities produce less than $45 per transaction and have fewer than 10 transactions.

Edit the summary

The smart narrative summary is highly customizable. You can edit or add to the existing text by using the text box commands. For example, you can make the text bold or change its color.

To customize the summary or add your own insights, use dynamic values. You can map text to existing fields and measures or use natural language to define a new measure to map to text. For example, to add information about the number of returned items in the sample file, add a value.

As you type a value name, you can choose from a list of suggestions as you do in a Q&A visual. So, in addition to asking questions of your data in a Q&A visual, you can now create your own calculations without even using Data Analysis Expressions (DAX).

You can also format dynamic values. For example, in the sample file, you can show values as currency, specify decimal places, and choose a separator for thousands.

To format a dynamic value, select the value in the summary to see your editing options on the Review tab. Or in the text box, next to the value that you want to edit, select the edit button.

You can also use the Review tab to review, delete, or reuse previously defined values. Select the plus sign (+) to insert the value into the summary. You can also show automatically generated values by turning on the option at the bottom of the Review tab.

Sometimes a hidden-summary symbol appears in the smart narrative. It indicates that current data and filters produce no result for the value. A summary is empty when no insights are available. For example, in the sample file's line chart, a summary of high and low values might be empty when the chart's line is flat. But the summary might appear under other conditions. Hidden-summary symbols are visible only when you try to edit a summary.

Visual interactions

A summary is dynamic. It automatically updates the generated text and dynamic values when you cross-filter. For example, if you select electronics products in the sample file's donut chart, the rest of the report is cross-filtered, and the summary is also cross-filtered to focus on the electronics products.

In this case, the visits and revenues have different trends, so the summary text is updated to reflect the trends. The count-of-returns value that we added is updated to $4196. Empty summaries can be updated when you cross-filter.

You can also do more advanced filtering. For example, in the sample file, look at the visual of trends for multiple products. If you're interested only in a trend for a certain quarter, then select the relevant data points to update the summary for that trend.

There's a limit to the number of summaries that can be generated so Smart Narratives picks the most interesting things to summarize about the visual. Smart Narratives generates up to four summaries per visual and up to 16 per page. The summaries that are generated for a page depend on the location and size of visuals and it avoids generating the same kind of summaries for different visuals. Therefore summarizing just the visual can generate more summaries that aren't present while summarizing the whole page.

Add a smart narrative icon to a visual

You can add an optional icon to the header of a visual that triggers an on-demand summary of the visual contents. Add it for accessibility purposes, to announce results to any assistive technology. You can enable it in the Format pane for individual visuals, or add it to your custom theme file for the visual types you choose.

Select a visual, and in the Format pane, select General.

Expand the Header icons section, then expand the Icons section, and set Smart narrative to On.

When your report readers hover over that visual, they can see and select the Smart narrative icon, to expose a text explanation of the visual. Unlike the other smart narratives, they can't pin this narrative to the report.

Considerations and limitations

The smart narrative feature doesn't support the following functionality:

Pinning to a dashboard

Using dynamic values and conditional formatting (for example, data bound title)

Publish to Web

Power BI Report Server

On-premises Analysis Services

Live Connection to Azure Analysis Services or SQL Server Analysis Services

MultiDimensional Analysis Services data sources

Key influencers visual with a categorical metric or unsummarized numerical field as 'Analyze' field from a table:

that contains more than one primary key

without a primary key, and measures or aggregates as 'Explain by' fields

Map visual with non-aggregated latitude or longitude

Multi-row card with more than three categorical fields

Cards with non-numeric measures

Tables, matrices, R visuals or Python visuals, custom visuals

Summaries of visuals whose columns are grouped by other columns and for visuals that are built on a data group field 

Cross-filtering out of a visual

Renaming dynamic values or editing automatically generated dynamic values

Summaries of visuals that contain on-the-fly calculations like QnA arithmetic, complex measures such as percentage of grand total and measures from extension schemas.

Calculation groups