: Re: Is there a standard for dealing with lyrics in dialogue and narration in creative writing? I'm peer-reviewing/editing a paper for a final in my English course and in it, the author has a character

@Kaufman555

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I found this at the Online Writing Lab concerning quoting poetry (emphasis added):

If the quotation is three lines or longer, set it off like a block quotation (see above). Some writers prefer to set off two-line verse quotations for emphasis. Quote the poem line by line as it appears on the original page. Do not use quotation marks, and indent one inch from the left margin.

In his poem 'Mending Wall,' Robert Frost questions the building of barriers and walls:


Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.

I know this is more for an essay-type of format rather than dialogue or narration, but I agree that having slashes in dialogue doesn't seem right. I regularly use Purdue University's Online Writing Lab for little problems like this.

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