The Story of Ellipsis

Nice little tree, huh? This is the first time in my life I've ever come across a FLOWERING curry leaf tree. Awesome!
Now let's get back to the ellipsis.

The Story of Ellipsis

Why ellipsis?
The ellipsis is used to indicate OMISSION of words in:
a. The middle of a quoted sentence
b. The middle of sentences within a quoted paragraph

In creative writing, the ellipsis functions to indicate that the speaker has trailed off
and left a sentence or thought unfinished.

What does ellipsis look like?
The ellipsis can consist of either 3 or 4 periods (also known as dots).

- A single dot is called an ELLIPSIS POINT.
- Use 3 spaced dots to indicate the omission of 1 or more words within a sentence
In this case, in addition to the spaces between the dots, we put a SPACE BEFORE the 1st ellipsis point AND AFTER the last one.

Consider the following:

“An elected member's seat will be considered vacant if he or she misses three or more consecutive meetings of the council without a reasonable excuse. A council member may miss a meeting because of personal illness or a family emergency but should not be absent because of vacations, business trips, or other meetings.”

Example: How to quote first sentence but omit “of the council”: The constitution states that council members will forfeit their seats if they miss “three or more consecutive meetings . . . without a reasonable excuse” (County Constitution 78).

The phrase “of the council” is not necessary in this context because:
a. Omitting that phrase does not change the intended meaning of the original text.
b. Omitting that phrase does not mislead the reader in any way.

The 3-dot ellipsis lets readers know that our quotation omits some words, is taken from the same sentence in the original text. This is called the MEDIAL ELLIPSIS.

Sometimes we want to omit words from the end of one sentence but continue to quote from subsequent sentences. Experts differ on how to handle this type of ellipsis, called the TERMINAL ellipsis.

Some style manuals tell us to use 3 spaced dots, just as we would for an omission within a sentence.

Others advocate the use of 4 spaced dots. The 4th dot stands for the period at the end of the sentence that we have not entirely quoted:
The 4th dot lets readers know that the quotation borrows from more than one sentence of the original text.

Notice that with the terminal ellipsis, we put NO SPACE between the 1st ellipsis point and the last word in the quoted text: The constitution states that council members will forfeit their seats if they miss “three or more consecutive meetings of the council. . . . because of vacations, business trips, or other meetings” (County Constitution 78).

Most style manuals discourage the use of ellipses at the beginning or end of a quotation except in rare cases:

Rare: The constitution explains under what conditions a council member's seat “. . . will be considered vacant . . .” (78).

Widely accepted: The constitution explains under what conditions a council member's seat “will be considered vacant” (78).

In cases where we have NO parenthetical documentation, we use a period (ALWAYS goes INSIDE the quotation marks): The constitution explains under what conditions a council member's seat “will be considered vacant.”

The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (6th ed.), published by the Modern Language Association advocates enclosing an ellipsis in square brackets to let the reader know that the ellipsis was not in the original text.

The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA); The Chicago Manual of Style; and, The Texas Law Review Manual on Usage, Style & EditingDO NOT encourage the use of brackets around ellipses.

When omitting material from a source text, be very careful NEVER to skew the intended meaning of a passage so we can represent the intended meaning honestly and accurately.

Anything else?
Yes! The ellipsis is also used to indicate that a sentence trails off, unfinished e.g.
“We thought the doors were locked, but just to be sure . . .”

This type of TERMINAL ellipsis always consists of 3 spaced dots, rather than 4, with NO SPACE between the LAST DOT and the closing quotation marks.

However, we should generally avoid this construction in expository writing, including business writing because in such contexts we want our thoughts to be clear and complete. An unfinished, incomplete construction is more appropriate in informal or creative writing.

PLUS it is ALWAYS INAPPROPRIATE in professional contexts to use ellipses widely and without discretion in place of other punctuation marks. Not only does the writer appear vague and uncertain but the writing is difficult to read in the absence of more appropriate punctuation.