Block quote mla

What are they?

Block quotes, also known as long quotes, are direct quotations from an outside source that must be formatted differently because of their length.

Each citation style has its own rules for when to use them and how to format them (see the table below), but there are a lot of similarities.

Why do we use them?

This isn’t an easy question to answer because there’s not just one answer.

According to Robert Bringhurst, author of The Elements of Typographic Style:

In books from the Baroque and Romantic periods, quotation marks are sometimes repeated at the beginning of every line of a long quotation.

When these distractions were finally omitted, the space they had occupied was frequently retained.

Block quote examples mla

This is the origin of the indented block quotation. Renaissance block quotations were set in a contrasting face at full size and full measure. (86)

Basically, the block quote is just a  remnant of the past that hasn’t gone out of style.

That’s nice and all, but what about the world outside of academia?

Block quot

how big is a block quote

how long should a block quote be