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Formatting Information — An introduction to typesetting with LATEX

Chapter 4: Lists, tables, figures

Section 4.5: Quotations

Direct speech and short quotes within a sentence ‘like this’ are done with simple quotation marks as described in § 1.8 above. Sometimes, however, you may want longer quotations set as a separate paragraph. Typically these are indented from the surrounding text. LATEX uses the quotation environment for doing this.

Figure 4.5: Block quotation with embedded citation

\begin{quotation}\small\noindent
At the turn of the century William Davy, a Devonshire parson, 
finding errors in the first edition of his \citetitle{davy}, 
asked for a new edition to be printed. His publisher refused 
and Davy purchased a press, type, and paper. He harnessed his 
gardener to the press and apprenticed his housemaid to the 
typesetting. After twelve years' work, a new edition of
fourteen sets of twenty-six volumes was issued---which surely
indicates that, when typomania is coupled with religious 
fervour, anything up to a miracle may be achieved.
\hfill\textcite[p.76]{ryder}
\end{quotation}
At the turn of the century William Davy, a Devonshire parson, finding errors in the first edition of his A System of Divinity, asked for a new edition to be printed. His publisher refused and Davy purchased a press, type, and paper. He harnessed his gardener to the press and apprenticed his housemaid to the typesetting. After twelve years' work, a new edition of fourteen sets of twenty-six volumes was issued---which surely indicates that, when typomania is coupled with religious fervour, anything up to a miracle may be achieved.

(Ryder, 1976, p 76)

Such quotations are often set in a smaller size of type, although this is not the default, but you can use one of the size commands like \small (see § 6.2.5 below) as shown in Figure 4.5 above.

The inclusion of a bibliographic citation at the end is commonplace unless you have mentioned the author and work immediately adjacent to the quotation. In academic or research documents where it is usually compulsory because of the requirement to cite everything you quote. It’s also possible in LATEX for this to be tucked into the space at the end of the last line of the quotation, if there is room (if it’s too long, or not predictable [like a web page], it should go on a line by itself, as it does in the web version of this document).

The quotation environment sets the whole block of text indented, and each paragraph of it also has its own indentation on the first line, even the first paragraph. This is rather unconventional as a default, so it is common to add a \noindent command at the start of the quotation so that the first paragraph does not get indented (others still will).