An MLA block quote is a freestanding block of text, indented half an inch from the left margin, with no quotation marks around it. You use this format any time you quote more than four lines of prose or more than three lines of verse. The rules for punctuation, citation placement, and internal quotation marks differ from regular inline quotes, so getting the details right matters.
When to Use a Block Quote
The threshold is simple. If the passage you’re quoting runs longer than four lines of prose in your paper, format it as a block quote. For poetry, the cutoff is lower: three lines of verse or more. Anything shorter than these limits gets placed inline within your paragraph, surrounded by quotation marks as usual.
Keep in mind that “four lines” refers to how the text appears in your paper, not in the original source. A long sentence from a novel might wrap to five lines in your double-spaced document, which means it needs block formatting even though it looked like two lines in the book.
How to Format a Prose Block Quote
Introduce the quotation with a signal phrase or sentence, typically ending with a colon. Then start the quoted text on a new line. Indent the entire block half an inch (0.5 inches) from the left margin. In most word processors, you can do this by highlighting the text and increasing the left indent, or by using the ruler to drag the margin marker to the half-inch point. Do not add extra indentation on the right side.
Keep the block double-spaced, just like the rest of your paper. Do not add extra space above or below the block quote. And critically, do not wrap the passage in quotation marks. The indentation itself signals that the text is a direct quote.
If the block quote begins at the start of a paragraph in the original source, indent the first line an additional half inch (so it sits one full inch from the left margin). If it doesn’t start at the beginning of a paragraph, leave the first line flush with the rest of the block.
Where to Place the Parenthetical Citation
The punctuation rules for block quotes are the opposite of what you do with inline quotes. In a regular inline quote, the period comes after the parenthetical citation. In a block quote, the period stays at the end of the quoted text, and the parenthetical citation follows after it with no additional period.
Here’s what that looks like in practice. The quoted passage ends with its own period (or whatever punctuation the original author used), then you add a space, then the parenthetical citation in parentheses:
…the end of the quoted sentence. (Smith 42)
There’s no period after the closing parenthesis. The MLA Style Center explains the logic: because a block quote is never inserted in the middle of your own sentence, the reader already knows your thought ends at the citation. The period inside the quote belongs to the original author, not to you, so it stays in place.
How to Block Quote Poetry
Poetry follows the same basic setup (indented half an inch, double-spaced, no quotation marks) but adds one important requirement: preserve the original line breaks. Each line of verse should appear on its own line, exactly as it does in the poem. If a line is too long to fit on one line in your paper, indent the continuation an additional quarter inch to show it’s a wrapped line, not a new one.
For poetry of four lines or more, keep the formatting as close to the original as possible. That means preserving any unusual spacing, indentation patterns, or stanza breaks the poet used. If the poem has a stanza break, represent it with a blank line in your block quote.
The parenthetical citation for poetry uses line numbers instead of page numbers. Place it after the final punctuation mark of the last line, just as you would with prose:
…the final line of the poem. (lines 12-18)
The first time you cite line numbers, include the word “lines” so the reader knows you’re not referring to page numbers. After that first reference, you can use just the numbers.
Quotation Marks Inside a Block Quote
Since block quotes don’t use quotation marks on the outside, any dialogue or quoted material inside the passage gets standard double quotation marks. This is different from inline quotes, where nested quotations switch to single marks.
For example, if you’re block quoting a passage from a novel that contains dialogue, the dialogue keeps its original double quotation marks. If the dialogue within the block quote itself contains a quotation, that inner layer gets single quotation marks. The pattern alternates: double, single, double.
Block Quotes in Word Processors
In Microsoft Word, the easiest method is to type or paste the quotation, highlight the entire block, then go to the paragraph settings and set the left indent to 0.5 inches. Make sure your line spacing is still set to double. Don’t use the Tab key to indent each line manually, because that creates inconsistent spacing and makes editing difficult.
In Google Docs, the process is nearly identical. Select the text, then either use Format > Align & indent > Indentation options to set the left indent to 0.5 inches, or drag the left indent marker on the ruler bar to the half-inch mark. Double-spacing should already match the rest of your paper if you set it at the document level.
After the block quote ends, your next paragraph of regular text should return to the normal margin. Most word processors will carry the indentation forward automatically, so remember to reset the left indent back to zero before you continue writing.
Quick Reference
- Prose threshold: more than four lines in your paper
- Poetry threshold: more than three lines of verse
- Indentation: 0.5 inches from the left margin for the entire block
- Spacing: double-spaced, same as the rest of the paper
- Quotation marks: none around the block; use double marks for any quotes inside it
- Period placement: period stays at the end of the quoted text, before the parenthetical citation
- No extra period: nothing follows the closing parenthesis of the citation
- Poetry line breaks: preserve the original formatting