A manual for writers of research papers, theses, and dissertations, 7th edition - Kate L. Turabian 2007
Block quotations
Quotations
Part III. Style 20 spelling
PROSE. Present a prose quotation of five or more lines as a block quotation. Introduce the quotation in your own words in the text; see 7.5. If you introduce the quotation with a complete sentence, end the sentence with a colon. If you use only an attribution phrase such as notes, claims, argues, or according to along with the author's name, end the phrase with a comma. If you weave the quotation into the syntax of your sentence, do not use any punctuation before the quotation if no punctuation would ordinarily appear there (see the second example below).
Single-space a block quotation, and leave a blank line before and after it. Do not add quotation marks at the beginning or end, but preserve any quotation marks in the original. Indent the entire quotation as far as you indent the first line of a paragraph. (In literary studies and other fields concerned with close analysis of texts, you should indent the first line of a block quotation further than the rest of the quotation if the text is indented in the original; see also 25.3.) For other punctuation and capitalization within the quotation, see 25.3.1.
Jackson begins by evoking the importance of home:
Housing is an outward expression of the inner human nature; no society can be fully understood apart from the residences of its members. A nineteenth-century melody declares, “There's no place like home,” and even though she had Emerald City at her feet, Dorothy could think of no place she would rather be than at home in Kansas. Our homes are our havens from the world.1
In the rest of his introduction, he discusses . . .
If you quote more than one paragraph, do not add extra lines between them, but indent the first line of the second and subsequent paragraphs further than the rest of the quotation.
He observed that
governments ordinarily perish by powerlessness or by tyranny. In the first case, power escapes them; in the other, it is torn from them.
Many people, on seeing democratic states fall into anarchy, have thought that government in these states was naturally weak and powerless. The truth is that when war among their parties has once been set aflame, government loses its action on society. (Tocqueville, 248)
If you cite the source in a footnote or endnote, place the note number as a superscript at the end of the block quotation, as in the first example above (see also 16.3.2). If you cite the source parenthetically, put the citation after the terminal punctuation of a block quotation, as in the second example above. (Note that this differs from its placement with a run-in quotation, as described in 25.2.1.)
POETRY AND DRAMA. Present a quotation of two or more lines from poetry as a block quotation. Begin each line of the poem on a new line, with punctuation at the ends of lines as in the original. For most papers, indent a block of poetry as you would a prose quotation; if a line is too long to fit on a single line, indent the runover further than the rest of the quotation. But in a dissertation or other longer paper that includes many poetry quotations, center each quotation on the page.
Whitman's poem includes some memorable passages:
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from
this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
If you are quoting a poem with an unusual alignment, reproduce the alignment of the original.
This is what Herbert captured so beautifully:
Sure there was wine
Before my sighs did drie it: there was corn
Before my tears did drown it.
Is the yeare onely lost to me?
Have I no bayes to crown it?
No flowers, no garlands gay? all blasted?
All wasted?
If you quote two or more lines of dialogue from a dramatic work, set the quotation apart in a block quotation formatted as you would prose. Present each speaker's name so that it is distinct from the dialogue, such as in all capital letters or in a different font. Begin each speech on a new line, and indent runovers further than the rest of the quotation.
Then the play takes an unusual turn:
R. ROISTER DOISTER. Except I have her to my wife, I shall run mad.
M. MERYGREEKE. Nay, “unwise” perhaps, but I warrant you for “mad.”
EPIGRAPHS. An epigraph is a quotation that establishes a theme of your paper. For epigraphs used in the front matter of a thesis or dissertation, see A.2.1. Treat an epigraph at the beginning of a chapter or section as a block quotation. On the line below it, give the author and the title, flush right and preceded by an em dash (or two hyphens; see 21.7.2). You do not need a more formal citation for an epigraph. Leave two blank lines between the source line and the beginning of text. See also figure A.9.
The city, however, does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand.
—Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities