Line-Break Slash
The forward slash used to mark line endings when verse is quoted inline.
When up to three lines of poetry are quoted within running prose, the original line breaks are marked with a forward slash, spaced on both sides: 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? / Thou art more lovely and more temperate'. A double slash (//) marks a stanza break.
The convention exists because line division is part of the poem's meaning — it controls pause, emphasis, and rhyme placement — so a quotation that silently runs lines together has altered the text, not merely reformatted it. MLA, Chicago, and most poetry publishers all require the slash for this reason.
Beyond three or four lines, styles switch to a set-off verse block that reproduces the lineation directly, along with the original indentation. At that length the slashes become harder to read than the lines they stand for.
Common mistake: omitting the spaces around the slash, or using a backslash. The spaced forward slash is the standard; the unspaced form reads as an alternative ('and/or') rather than a break.
“Do not go gentle into that good night, / Old age should burn and rave at close of day”
Keep reading the glossary
A long quotation set off as its own indented paragraph, without quotation marks.
A short quotation set inside the writer's own sentence with quotation marks, rather than displayed as a separate block.
A long quotation set off from the surrounding text by margin indentation instead of quotation marks.
Word-for-word — quoting exactly as the original was spoken or written.