Indented Quotation
A long quotation set off from the surrounding text by margin indentation instead of quotation marks.
An indented quotation — also called a display quotation or set-off quotation — is a quoted passage long enough to be broken out of the running text and given its own block, distinguished by a wider left margin (and, sometimes, a smaller type size or extra vertical space). Because the visual setting already marks it as quoted material, indented quotations do not take quotation marks.
Style guides set thresholds. Chicago recommends setting off prose quotations of about 100 words or five lines or more; MLA sets the threshold at four typed lines; APA at 40 words. Below the threshold, the quotation runs in with quotation marks around it. Above it, the passage is indented. The point is the reader's convenience: long quotations lose their shape inside running text, and indentation restores it.
Formatting details matter. The block is usually indented from the left margin only (not the right), single-spaced or matched to the body's leading, and separated from the surrounding text by extra vertical space. The introductory sentence typically ends in a colon. Quotation marks return only when the original source itself contained a quotation, and then only for that inner passage.
Common mistake: adding both indentation and quotation marks. The two conventions do the same work; using them together is a small tautology that suggests the writer does not trust either device. Pick one — usually indentation for the long passage — and rely on it.
“As Woolf writes in 'A Room of One's Own': A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction; and that, as you will see, opens the door upon all the great problems of the true nature of woman and the true nature of fiction.”
Keep reading the glossary
A long quotation set off as its own indented paragraph, without quotation marks.
A short, eye-catching quote lifted from an article and displayed in large type for emphasis.
A short quotation embedded directly in a sentence, inside quotation marks.
A short quotation set inside the writer's own sentence with quotation marks, rather than displayed as a separate block.