Block Quotations (Long Quotations)
A quotation that runs more than four lines in your prose should be set off from the text as a block indented half an inch from the left margin. Do not indent the first line an extra amount or add quotation marks not present in the source. Your prose introducing a quotation displayed in this way should end with a colon, except when the grammatical connection between your introductory wording and the quotation requires a different mark of punctuation or none at all. A parenthetical citation for a prose quotation set off from the text follows the last line of the quotation. The punctuation mark concluding the quotation comes before the parenthetical citation; no punctuation follows the citation.
Block quotation introduced with a colon
In Moll Flanders, Defoe follows the picaresque tradition by using a pseudoautobiographical narration:
My true name is so well known in the records, or registers, at Newgate and in the Old Bailey,
and there are some things of such consequence still depending there relating to my particular
conduct, that it is not to be expected I should set my name or the account of my family to this work. . . .
It is enough to tell you, that . . . some of my worst comrades, who are out of the way of doing
me harm . . . know me by the name of Moll Flanders. . . . (1)
Block quotation integrated into the sentence structure of your prose
At the conclusion of Lord of the Flies, Ralph, realizing the horror of his actions, is overcome by emotion, and
sobs shook him. He gave himself up to them now for the first time on the island; great, shuddering spasms
of grief that seemed to wrench his whole body. His voice rose under the black smoke before the burning
wreckage of the island; and infected by that emotion, the other little boys began to shake and sob too. (186)
After the concluding punctuation mark of the quotation, type a space and insert the parenthetical citation. Do not indent the prose that follows the quotation unless you intend a new paragraph to begin.
Block quotation followed by prose that continues your paragraph
Encouraged by technology, we have developed
a notion of reading that structurally privileges locating information over deciphering and analyzing
more-complex text. This structural bent becomes increasingly important in planning educational curricula
as the number of online courses (along with online readings) skyrockets and as readers flock to e-books
because they are nearly always less expensive than their print counterparts. We must not let pedagogical
and economic pressures cause us to lose sight of the question of whether a new notion of reading is emerging,
in which deep and sustained reading (for work or pleasure) runs second to information gathering and short-term
distraction. (Baron 200)
What we do know, however, is that readers are not solely bent on extraction but also want to add to, complete, or even alter the text.