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How to cite an entire paragraph taken from a book? Is it just writing the paragraph as a separate one and adding (Author, Year) in the end? Will it not imply that only the last sentence in the paragraph is written by that reference?

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I'm having the same issue... he's talking about how the whole paragraph (every sentence) contains info that wasnt common knowledge, but also wasnt a quote. Am I right? like 70% is all my own words, but 30% are facts I didn't get on my own. But theyre ALL from the same source, same author, and same article. '_______________________ _______________________ ____________________ _________________________' (blahblah, 17). is that ok? Because Im not gonna go (blahblah, 17) after EVERY sentence, but its also not a quote. I will NOT indent, because my entire fucking paper is like that. So what do i do – user3591 May 4 '12 at 11:17
@Reallypissedthatno-oneknowshow: Original poster seems to have meant a direct quote - see his comment to Kate Sherwood's answer. But what you're asking might be a new question... – Standback♦ May 4 '12 at 11:38
Are you using APA or MLA? – Neil Fein♦ May 4 '12 at 16:54

3 Answers

up vote 8 down vote accepted

When citing large blocks of text like a paragraph, you're probably better off indenting the paragraph, and introducing the text.

For example:

As How to Indent notes (Billy Bob, 2011):

It's better to indent long pieces of text, because then it makes clear that you're quoting a lengthy piece of work. By introducing it with a sentence, you also make clear exactly what you are referencing.

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3  
The rule in MLA formatting is that text of more than four lines is indented. Not sure about other academic citation formats. – justkt May 25 '11 at 12:43
@justkt - Thanks! Wasn't aware of that. – Craig Sefton May 25 '11 at 13:12
I posted the APA guidelines below in another answer, the APA guide I have says word count – Nathan C. Tresch May 4 '12 at 19:18
You seem to have overlooked the variations in different style guides. The OP has not stated any. This answer cannot be taken as canonical: There's the hazard of readers in future presuming this style can be applied uniformly in all writing. – Kris May 13 '12 at 18:35
@Kris - You're right, I wasn't aware of the different variations when I answered this. I answered it as best I could based on what I did know. If you know of the variations, then add them in the comments, or post your own answer to help others. – Craig Sefton May 14 '12 at 18:25
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up vote 2 down vote

Are you quoting it directly, or paraphrasing? I guess you wouldn't bother asking if you were using a direct quote, since that seems crystal-clear - the citation would obviously apply to all the material inside the quotation marks or indented quotation. So you must be paraphrasing... but then you're talking about the last sentence being written by the other author...? I'm not clear on this.

But, yes, in general, you only want to cite once per adopted passage. But also, in general, you don't want to paraphrase an entire paragraph from another author. You can take the author's idea and attribute it, but are you borrowing the structure of the paragraph, as well? Again, I'm not quite clear what you're trying to do.

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I actually wanted to quote the entire paragraph directly. I was not quite sure if I could use quotation marks for the entire paragraph or indent the whole paragraph. Elsewhere I read you need to cite once. So I felt if I just copy this entire paragraph without indenting/quoting from a book and write (Author,Year) only for the last sentence wouldn't it mean that I have attributed only the last sentence like this(Anonymous, 2011). – Chethan S. May 25 '11 at 14:13
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The indent or the quotation marks make it clear where the quotation begins. – Kate Sherwood May 26 '11 at 1:42
up vote 3 down vote

I know this has an accepted answer, but it's from Billy Bob. The APA Guide has the following to say:

When writing an entire paragraph about a single study, introduce that paragraph by stating that you will refer to the same study throughout the paragraph, then cite the reference. This avoids awkwardness and redundancy.

And as to indenting, this is what it says:

If the quotation has more than 40 words, use a block quotation. Begin the quotation on a new line and indent a half-inch from the left margin. Double-space the entire quotation, and at the end of the quotation, provide citation information after the final punctuation mark.

I hope this helps!

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