When I write : My parent never told me that some criminals are being executed,
Do I add a quotation mark before some and after executed when I am using "that"?
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4No. It's clearly not a direct quote, so no quotations marks. – Hot Licks Feb 22 '15 at 22:57
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As your sentence stands, it is a report structure. You are not claiming that you are repeating your parent's actual words. Use of quotation marks, on the other hand, is understood to show a quote structure, where the words are claimed to be exactly as [here, your parent] uttered them. 'That' is used most often with report structures. But not exclusively:
From Pasco-Hernando State College Writing Center [tweaked]:
A1 He said, “It will rain today.”
B1 He said, “It is absolutely certain that it will rain today.”
See how the signal phrase [often known confusingly as the reporting clause] is limited to words that say who says the quote.
When more words are added before the quote, the quote becomes fragmentary – a partial sentence quote.
One example is the use of the word that before a quote. Then, the quoted words would be part of a sentence started outside the quote:
B2 He said that “it will rain today.”
Edwin Ashworth
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