Hi Jessicamessica, 1.You would need a comma if your dialogue were declarative ("This is the reason," Ellen remarked.) 2.As Ellen was asking a question, a question mark takes the place of the comma ("'What's the matter?' Ellen asked.) 3.Just to complete the discussion, if your dialogue were exclamatory, an exclamation mark would take the place of the comma ("What's wrong with you!" Ellen shouted.) I hope this helps.

No you don't. What is contained in the quotation marks is a full sentence. If you had written " 'I wanted to know what the matter was,' Ellen said." you need it because 'Ellen said' is not a complete sentence on its own and there is no other punctuation to negate the comma. Likewise with your original question 'Ellen asked' is not a complete sentence but the addition of a comma after a question mark is clunky and is generally avoided.