Updated
When a quote becomes a block
- MLA 9
- More than four lines of prose, or more than three lines of poetry.
- APA 7
- 40 words or more (APA 7, 8.27).
- Chicago 18
- About 100 words or more, or two or more paragraphs; Turabian says five or more lines.
MLA
- Indent the whole quote half an inch from the left margin. Keep it double-spaced.
- No quotation marks. The citation goes after the final punctuation: ...the end. (Walker 112)
- Introduce it with a sentence ending in a colon, or a phrase that runs into it.
- Poetry keeps the poet’s line breaks; a quotation that starts mid-line keeps its position.
Lincoln opens by tying the war to the country’s founding:
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. (Lincoln)
The Gettysburg Address, as in the Bliss copy. A speech has no page numbers, so the citation is the name alone.
APA
- Indent the whole quote half an inch. Keep it double-spaced, with no added space above or below.
- No quotation marks. The citation goes after the final punctuation: (Walker, 2017, p. 112)
- A new paragraph inside the quote gets an extra half-inch first-line indent.
Chicago and Turabian
- Indent the block half an inch. Turabian single-spaces it with a blank line before and after.
- No quotation marks. The note number goes at the end of the block, after the punctuation.
- In author-date, the parenthetical follows the final punctuation, as in APA.
Common mistakes
- Quotation marks around a block. The indent replaces them. Quotation marks inside the passage become double quotation marks as usual.
- The citation before the period. In a block, it follows the final punctuation.
- Block quotes to fill space. Instructors notice. Quote only what you will discuss.
Questions
How long is a block quote in MLA?
More than four typed lines of prose, or more than three lines of verse.
How many words for an APA block quote?
40 or more.
Is a block quote double-spaced?
In MLA and APA, yes. Turabian single-spaces it.