Sometimes an author says something so clearly that it's better to quote them directly. If the quote is long, it becomes a block quote. Block quotes look different from regular quotes, and MLA has specific rules for them.
When to use a block quote
MLA measures by lines, not words:
- Prose: if the quote would take up more than four lines when typed into your paragraph, make it a block quote.
- Poetry: if you quote more than three lines of a poem, make it a block quote.
Anything shorter goes inside your paragraph, in quotation marks.
Use block quotes sparingly. Most of the time it's better to paraphrase the source in your own words. But when the original wording really matters, a block quote is the right choice.
How to format a block quote
- Introduce it with your own sentence, usually ending with a colon.
- Start the quote on a new line.
- Indent the whole quote half an inch from the left margin.
- Leave off the quotation marks. The indent already shows it's a quote.
- Keep it double-spaced, like the rest of the paper.
- Put the citation after the quote's final punctuation, which is the reverse of a regular in-text citation. Add no period after the citation.
An example
Here's a real passage from page 3 of the Sykes study:
Two Himalayan hairs matched an ancient polar bear, and Sykes and his colleagues wrote:
With the exception of these two samples, none of the submitted and analysed hairs samples returned a sequence that could not be matched with an extant mammalian species, often a domesticate. While it is important to bear in mind that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence and this survey cannot refute the existence of anomalous primates, neither has it found any evidence in support. (Sykes et al. 3)
- A lead-in sentenceYour own words set up the quote, ending with a colon.
- Indented half an inchEvery line of the quote moves in from the left margin, with no quotation marks.
- The citation after the final periodAuthor and page, with no period after the parentheses.
Quoting poetry
For up to three lines of poetry, keep the quote in your sentence, in quotation marks, and mark each line break with a slash, with a space on each side:
Frost's speaker admits, “The woods are lovely, dark and deep, / But I have promises to keep” (lines 13–14).
For more than three lines, set the poem off as a block, half an inch from the margin, and keep the poet's own line breaks, one line of the poem per line of your paper.
Quick checklist
- Prose over four lines, or poetry over three, becomes a block quote
- A lead-in sentence, usually ending with a colon
- The whole quote indented half an inch, double-spaced
- No quotation marks around the block
- Citation after the final punctuation, with no period after it
- Poetry keeps its own line breaks; shorter poetry quotes use slashes
Block quotes in PERRLA
If you're using PERRLA, the block quote style is one click. In PERRLA Online, select the quote, choose Text & Heading Style on the ribbon, and pick Block Quote. PERRLA handles the indent and the spacing. And if a quote in your paragraph runs long enough to be a block quote, PERRLA's last check before you submit points it out and offers to fix it.
Long quotesMake block quote
…“With the exception of these two samples…”