For all you English majors out there (or any of you who cite following MLA guidelines):
I am deeply disturbed by the new 7th edition requirement that block quotes be kept double spaced. I’ve been living with this change for a little while, expecting that I’d get used to it. Well, that hasn’t happened. I still feel like I’m cheating, like I’m adding pages to my paper by citing double spaced passages of verse. I mean, the lines don’t even make it to my right margin! It looks so… spacey.
While I don’t have my handy-dandy MLA Guidebook with me at the library today, I give you this passage from the Purdue OWL:
For quotations that extend to more than four lines of verse or prose, place quotations in a free-standing block of text and omit quotation marks. Start the quotation on a new line, with the entire quote indented one inch from the left margin; maintain double-spacing. Only indent the first line of the quotation by a half inch if you are citing multiple paragraphs. Your parenthetical citation should come after the closing punctuation mark. When quoting verse, maintain original line breaks. (You should maintain double-spacing throughout your essay.)
