Summer Writing Quotation Forms

In-text quotations are used to inform the reader of the origin of the direct or indirect quotation. In text quotations name the author (and often the source) in the text before the reference. For instance,

In "Self-Reliance", Emerson states that"all envy is suicide." This principle is suggested throughout...


A Parenthetical quotation contains the author's name and work in parenthesis after the reference. For instance:

Transcendentalists believe that we drug oursleves with our own preoccupation with the importance of our lives. (Emerson, "Self-Reliance.")


A block quotation is a direct quote of longer than three lines. (Note that these are lines of type, not sentences.)  Block quotes are indented, double-spaced from the text, and do not have quotation marks. They use parenthetical references. For instance:

There is little doubt that the transcendentalists believed that each person was unique and important in life.

The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.  Not for nothing one face, one character, one fact, makes much impression on him, and another none. This sculpture in the memory is not without preestablished harmony. The eye was placed where one ray should fall, that it might testify of that particular ray.  We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents. (Emerson, "Self-Reliance")

Each of us is a "divine idea" which each of us must "express." Yet we retreat from that expression because of self-doubt and lack of self-reliance.