Block quotation

This article is about the text quotation style. For the HTML element, seeblockquote element.

Heavily-stylized example of a block quotation

Ablock quotation(also known as along quotationorextract) is aquotationin a written document that is set off from the main text as a paragraph, or block of text, and typically distinguished visually usingindentationand a differenttypefaceor smaller size font. This is in contrast to setting it off withquotation marksin arun-in quote.Block quotations are used for long quotations.The Chicago Manual of Stylerecommends using a block quotation when extracted text is 100 words or more, or approximately six to eight lines in a typical manuscript.

Origins

In the first centuries oftypesetting,quotations were distinguished merely by indicating the speaker, and this can still be seen on some editions of theBible.During theRenaissance,quotations were distinguished by setting in atypefacecontrasting with the main body text (oftenItalic typewithroman,or the other way round). Block quotations were set this way at full size and full measure.

Quotation markswere first cut in type during the middle of the sixteenth century, and were used copiously by some printers by the seventeenth. InBaroqueandRomantic-periodbooks, they could be repeated at the beginning of every line of a long quotation. When this practice was abandoned, the empty margin remained, leaving an indented block quotation.

Formatting

Apart from quotation marks not being used to enclose block quotations, there are no hard-and-fast rules for the exact formatting of block quotations. To a large extent the specific format may be dictated by the method of publication (e.g.handwrittentext,typewrittenpages, orelectronic publishing) as well as thetypefacebeing used.

For writers and editors,The Chicago Manual of Style(8th edition, 2007) recommends using a block quotation when cited text is five lines or longer. Other sources set the threshold at four or five lines. The block quotation may also be used to distinguish shorter citations from original text, though strictly speaking this does not followAPAorMLA styleguidelines. Use of the block quotation for shorter passages is astylistic choicethat may or may not be acceptable depending on the situation.

Some guidelines suggest an indentation of five, ten, or fifteen spaces. However, five spaces in aproportional fontmay be much narrower than in atypewriter fontof the samepoint size.In addition, setting an indent based on an exact number of spaces may not be technically possible in a given word processing or electronic publishing application. In these situations, a measurement of distance rather than a number of spaces may be prescribed instead (for example, a1⁄2to 1 in or 1 to 2 cm indent). Some writers indent block quotations from the right margin as well. Block quotations are generally set off from the text that precedes and follows them by also adding extra space above and below the quotation and setting the text in smaller type. Barring specific requirements, the format of the block quotation will ultimately be determined byaesthetics,making the quotation pleasing to the eye, easy to read, and appropriate for the particular writing task.

Intypesetting,block quotations can be distinguished from the surrounding text by variation in typeface (often italic vs. roman), type size, or byindentation.Often combinations of these methods are used, but are not necessary. Block quotations are also visually distinguished from preceding and following main text blocks by a white line or half-line space.For example:

Fielding hides his own opinions on the matter deep inTom Jones:

Now, in reality, the world have paid too great a compliment to critics, and have imagined them men of much greater profundity than they really are. From this complaisance the critics have been emboldened to assume a dictatorial power, and have so far succeeded that they are now become the masters, and have the assurance to give laws to those authors from whose predecessors they originally received them.

References

Sources

• Bringhurst, Robert (2002).The Elements of Typographic Style.Hartley & Marks.ISBN978-0-88179-132-7.