MLA Block Quote: When and How to Format Long Quotations

Most quotations in an essay are short and sit inside your sentence. An MLA block quote is the exception. MLA asks you to switch to a block when a quotation gets long, so readers can see where your words stop and the source's words start. The MLA Citation Maker builds the Works Cited entry for whatever you're quoting.

The four-line rule for prose

Use the MLA block quote format for prose when it would run to more than four lines in your paper. Count lines as they appear in your own document, not in the book. Exactly four lines stays in your paragraph.

The three-line rule for poetry

For verse, the threshold is lower: quote more than three lines of a poem as a block. Up to three lines can stay in your sentence, with a slash ( / ) between the lines. You'll find a few older guides that say "four lines or more" for poetry; the Purdue OWL's MLA quotations page reflects both versions, so if your instructor gives a different number, follow the assignment sheet.

Dialogue and multiple paragraphs

Two cases need an MLA block quote even when they're short. Dialogue between two or more characters in a play is always set off, and so is a quotation that runs across more than one paragraph of prose. Both are covered below.

Every MLA block quote follows the same eight rules of MLA block quote format. Use this list as a checklist.

1. Use a block for more than four lines of prose or more than three lines of verse.
2. Introduce the quotation with your own words, usually ending in a colon.
3. Start the quotation on a new line.
4. Indent the whole quotation 0.5 inch from the left margin; the right margin doesn't change.
5. Keep the block double-spaced, like the rest of your paper.
6. Leave out the quotation marks around the block.
7. Put the parenthetical citation after the final punctuation mark.
8. After the block, continue at the left margin unless you're starting a new paragraph.

Do block quotes need quotation marks in MLA?

No. The indent already tells readers the words are quoted, so quotation marks around a block would be redundant. The only quotation marks inside a block are those in the original, such as a character's spoken words.

Spacing and font

The MLA block quote format uses the same font, size and double spacing as your paper; don't shrink it or single-space it.

An MLA block quote citation follows the same author-page rules as any quotation, so learning how to block quote in MLA mostly means learning where the parentheses go.

The citation goes after the period

This is the core of the MLA block quote format. In a short quotation, the period follows the citation: "…against the panes" (Shelley 58). In a block, the order flips. End the quotation with its own punctuation, add a space, then the citation, and stop there: …that lay at my feet. (Shelley 58)

Don't add another period after the parentheses.

Author in your sentence or in the parentheses

If your introduction names the author, as in "Mary Shelley writes:", the parentheses need only the page: (58). If it doesn't, give the author and the page: (Shelley 58). The MLA in-text citation guide covers the full system, including sources with two authors, no author or no page number.

Matching the Works Cited page

Every MLA block quote needs a matching Works Cited entry. Paste the book's title or ISBN into the citation maker above to get it.

Don't drop a block quotation MLA style into your paper without warning. Lead into it with a sentence that tells readers who's speaking and why the passage matters.

Use a colon after a complete sentence

The most common way to introduce an MLA block quote is a full sentence ending in a colon: "Shelley lets Victor describe the moment of creation in plain, tired detail:" The colon signals that the quotation illustrates the sentence you just wrote.

Use a comma or nothing when the grammar runs on

After a short signal phrase such as "As Victor explains," a comma fits; if the quote finishes your sentence grammatically, use no punctuation. Douglas College's MLA 9 guide to quotations gives the colon as the default and allows other punctuation when the grammar needs it.

Explain it afterward

A good MLA block quote example always has a few sentences of analysis after it that point to specific words in the passage.

For a block quotation, MLA gives poetry its own threshold and layout, because line breaks are part of the poem's meaning.

Keep the poet's line breaks

When you quote more than three lines of verse, start each line of the poem on a new line of your paper, exactly as it's broken in the original. Don't use slashes in a block; slashes are only for short verse quotations inside your sentence.

Citing line numbers

Cite a poem by line number, not page. Write "lines" in the first citation and the numbers alone after that: (lines 6–10), then (16–20).

Omitting lines

Show skipped whole lines with a row of spaced periods, and words left out within a line with an ellipsis: . . .

When you quote a conversation between characters in a play, use an MLA block quote no matter how short the speeches are. The format lets readers follow who's speaking.

Format the character names

Start each speech on a new line indented 0.5 inch. Write the character's name in capital letters, add a period, then the speech: BARNARDO. Who's there? If a speech runs onto a second line, indent the continuation lines a little further than the name. When another character speaks, start a new line at the 0.5-inch indent. Writing Commons' guide to quoting plays shows the same layout.

Cite act, scene and line

For a verse play like Hamlet, give the act, scene and line numbers separated by periods: (Hamlet 1.1.1–4). For a prose play, cite the page instead.

Sometimes the passage spans two or more paragraphs. It's still a block quotation MLA requires, even if the whole thing is under four lines.

Indent each new paragraph a little more

Indent the whole block 0.5 inch as usual. Don't add an extra indent to the first line, even if it starts a paragraph in the original. Then indent the first line of each later paragraph an extra 0.25 inch, per the Purdue OWL (instructors vary). In Pride and Prejudice, the second paragraph ("However little known the feelings…") gets that extra indent.

Quotations within the block

Keep any quotation marks inside the passage exactly as the source has them. Since the block has none of its own, don't change double marks to single ones.

Usually not. What you write after an MLA block quote depends on whether you're continuing the same paragraph.

Continuing the paragraph

Most of the time, the sentence after a block quotation in MLA discusses it, so it belongs to the same paragraph. Start that line at the left margin with no indent. The BYU–Hawaii Reading Writing Center's MLA format page explains it the same way: the text is still part of the paragraph that began before the quote.

Starting a new paragraph

If the block ends your paragraph, indent the next line 0.5 inch, as you would any new paragraph.

Here's how to block quote in MLA in Word or Google Docs. Don't build the indent with the space bar or with a Tab at the start of each line. If you change the text later, the lines will break in odd places. Set a paragraph indent instead.

Microsoft Word

1. Select the whole quotation.
2. On the Layout tab, find Indent and set Left to 0.5".
3. Make sure Right is 0" and Spacing Before and After are 0 pt.

Google Docs

1. Select the quotation.
2. Go to Format > Align & indent > Indentation options.
3. Set Left indent to 0.5 inches and Special indent to None, then click Apply.

Check the spacing

Set the block to double spacing with no added space before or after, so the MLA block quote matches the rest of the paper.

Most points lost on long quotes in MLA papers come from a few habits carried over from short quotations or from other styles.

A quick check before you submit

Look at each MLA block quote in your paper: no quotation marks around it, 0.5-inch left indent, double-spaced, citation after the final period, and analysis right after it. If the sources on your Works Cited page still need formatting, the free MLA citation maker builds each entry in MLA 9.

An MLA block quote is a tool for close reading, not a way to fill space.

Measure your quoting

Paste your draft into the word counter with and without the long quotes in MLA format to see how much of the paper is your own writing.

Build the rest of the paper

Your Works Cited list has its own rules, from the hanging indent to alphabetical order; see the guide to the MLA Works Cited page. For the first-page heading, read the MLA heading guide, and if you're writing in Google Docs, the guide to MLA format in Google Docs covers every setting. Every guide is on the student citation guides page.

Let the tool handle the entries

Let the MLA citation maker format your sources: paste each one into the MLA citation generator and copy the entry.