Question about direct quoting in an essay.?

Question

For example:

If I have this is my essay:

Billy bob was good at eating lollipops.

"His butt glistened with intensity as he ate the lollipop" (Homer, 2)

And so one day he got a lollipop to eat.

The first and last line are both in the same paragraph so do I indent the last line? Or just keep it as is.

A better example would be like:

Cotton is fluffy. It is a material made for making fluffy things and Hanes shirts. Lallalallwlekrjlkjlkjkljlkjlkjlkj jkljlkj Lollipops lallalallawlelalalalla.

"Cotton is fluffly" (Fitzgerald, 829)

kjflakjelkwjalkjlkjlkjsdkljflkjlkajlaw...

laksjdfkljalskdfjklasdjlkfj

SO I guess it's really not a better example but it's three different sections and ALL one paragraph. So I JUST indent the first line of the first section of the paragraph right? :) Thanks.

Answer 1

In an essay or other formal writing you should not set apart the quotation unless it is a block quote (the quotation is over four lines).  Thus you should not have to worry about indentations because the citation should flow as part of the essay.

Example:

      Cotton is a soft material.  "Cotton is soft" (Fitzgerald 873).  Cotton can be used to make things fluffy or shirts.

But if the citation is at the end of the paragraph then yes you should indent whats below it because it is starting a new paragraph.

Also, when using parenthetical citations there is no comma between the author and page number: (Author page#)

Answer 2

you just quote as it is in the book