Block the Block Quotes

Have you ever run into a block quote while you are reading? You likely do what most people do — which is skip ahead and keep reading. Unless it’s something particularly interesting, a block breaks up a reader's pacing and sends them moving along.

Now, your high school teachers likely asked you to use at least one block quote in each essay that you wrote. But that wasn’t because good writers employ block quotes to great effect, it was because they needed to see that when confronted with a block quote you knew how to implement them correctly.

But here is the deal. Profs don’t read block quotes anymore than you or I, which means you shouldn’t use them in your essay unless absolutely necessary. Be concise, shorten them down to a reasonable length of one to two lines and focus on what you really need to make your point. It won’t block the flow of your paper, won’t look like filler, and will most likely sound better.