Q. I am wondering about line spacing for block quotes and lines of dialogue. If the rest of my article is double-spaced, should my block quotes be single-spaced (so they are more legible as someone else’s words)? I have seen block quotes indented and single-spaced in journals, but I am not sure if that is a CMOS guideline.
A. In a typed manuscript, prose extracts should be indented and have the same line spacing as the surrounding text (see CMOS 2.8 and 2.19); they do not need to appear in a smaller font. When the extracts are printed in a book or journal, they will be styled according to that publication’s design template, which almost certainly will be single-spaced and possibly in a smaller text size.