Are you over-quoting?

The legal-writing experts frown on over-quoting, particularly from court opinions. Your readers tend to hurdle a big block quotation; they don't read it at all. You will be more effective if you paraphrase the quoted material or just use the best part of it. This also gives you an opportunity to make your point as persuasively as possible. Even if you use a block quotation, paraphrasing what it says as to introduce it has a better chance of getting read than the quotation itself. Or, to think of it in another way, you introduce your quoted material with a paraphrase just as a moderator introduces a speaker. (Kenneth F. Oettle, "Give a Quotation a Good Introduction," the Scribes Journal of Legal Writing, Vol. 11, p. 137 (2007)). Don’t believe me? Check Illinois Supreme Court Rule 341(a), which states in part that “lengthy quotations are not favored and should be included only where they will aid the court’s comprehension of the argument.”