How to use quotation marks when quoting more than one paragraphs?

Question

When quoting on a website like Stack Exchange, we have block quotes:

like these

but if they aren't available, and I want to use "double quotation marks": "then the quote is enclosed in them like this". Now it is ok for a single paragraph, I can put "..." at the beginning and the end of the paragraph. For example, from English Language Wikipedia:
"The next period in the history of English was Early Modern English (1500–1700). Early Modern English was characterised by the Great Vowel Shift (1350–1700), inflectional simplification, and linguistic standardisation."
That's OK. But what if I quote multiple paragraphs? Should I use "..." at the beginning and end of each paragraph separately?
Example:
"The next period in the history of English was Early Modern English (1500–1700). Early Modern English was characterised by the Great Vowel Shift (1350–1700), inflectional simplification, and linguistic standardisation."
"The Great Vowel Shift affected the stressed long vowels of Middle English. It was a chain shift, meaning that each shift triggered a subsequent shift in the vowel system. Mid and open vowels were raised, and close vowels were broken into diphthongs."
"English began to rise in prestige, relative to Norman French, during the reign of Henry V. Around 1430, the Court of Chancery in Westminster began using English in its official documents, and a new standard form of Middle English, known as Chancery Standard, developed from the dialects of London and the East Midlands"
Is that the correct way? Or is there any other way to do so?

Andrew Leach · Accepted Answer

The standard way of doing this is to put a quote mark at the start of each paragraph, but if a quote continues to the next paragraph, don't close the quote until it really ends.

"The next period in the history of English was Early Modern English (1500–1700). Early Modern English was characterised by the Great Vowel Shift (1350–1700), inflectional simplification, and linguistic standardisation.
"The Great Vowel Shift affected the stressed long vowels of Middle English. It was a chain shift, meaning that each shift triggered a subsequent shift in the vowel system. Mid and open vowels were raised, and close vowels were broken into diphthongs.
"English began to rise in prestige, relative to Norman French, during the reign of Henry V. Around 1430, the Court of Chancery in Westminster began using English in its official documents, and a new standard form of Middle English, known as Chancery Standard, developed from the dialects of London and the East Midlands"

I've been unable to find a good reference. Neither Burchfield [New Fowler's Modern English Usage, 1998], Swan [Practical English Usage, 2005] nor Bringhurst [Elements of Typographic Style, v3.1, 2005] mentions it.
However, have a look at one example in a long Bible passage: John 16:1–16 — each paragraph is set out as my example above.

How to use quotation marks when quoting more than one paragraphs?

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