Empoword

Part Three: Research and Argumentation 326 Extended Quotes A quick note on block quotes: Sometimes, you may find it necessary to use a long direct quote from a source. For instance, if there is a passage that you plan to analyze in-depth or throughout the course of the entire paper, you may need to reproduce the whole thing. You may have seen other authors use block quotes in the course of your research. In the middle of a sentence or paragraph, the text will break into a long direct quote that is indented and separated from the rest of the paragraph. There are occasions when it is appropriate for you to use block quotes, too, but they are rare. Even though long quotes can be useful, quotes long enough to block are often too long. Using too much of one source all at once can overwhelm your own voice and analysis, distract the reader, undermine your ethos , and prevent you from digging into a quote. It’s typically a better choice to • abridge (omit words from the beginning or end of the quote, or from the middle using an ellipsis […]), • break up (split one long quote into two or three shorter quotes that you can attend to more specifically), or • paraphrase a long quote, especially because that gives you more space for the last step of the formula above. If, in the rare event that you must use a long direct quote, one which runs more than four lines on a properly formatted page, follow the guidelines from the appropriate style guide. In MLA format, block quotes are: (a) indented one inch from the margin, (b) double-spaced, (c) not in quotation marks, and (d) use original end- punctuation and an in- text citation after the last sentence. The paragraph will continue after the block quote without any indentation.