We’ve come to the end of our four-part post series, and we’re wrapping up this week with a short, special section dedicated to the treatment of block quotations. As a general rule of thumb, the different between a long run-in quotation and block quotation depends on your style guide or house style as dictated by your publisher. Chicago Manual of Style sets off block quotations at about six to eight lines (or 100 words). Meaning, once the quotation reaches about eight lines of text, then it should be indented and offset to ensure readability.
Once you’ve determined how many lines your block quotations should be, separate it with an extra line space before and after it appears in the text. The quotation itself should be single spaced without quotation marks. Block quotations are generally indented .5 from the page margins. Here’s an example:
The in-text citation goes right after the block quote, same as in any other quotation depending on your style guide. However, the period goes before the parentheses of the citation instead of after:
This concludes our beginner citations series! If you have any specific questions regarding the topics we’ve covered, leave a comment below or on our Facebook page.
Kellye McBride Editing 