Elipses

This article is taken from The Writer's ABC Checklist, co-written by Lorraine Mace and Maureen Vincent-Northam. The guidebook is written with all budding writers in mind, to help them present works that end up in the shortlist, not the shredder. Information is presented in a concise A - Z format, and unfamiliar terms are explained, taking the novice through each step in the submission process.

An ellipsis (…) shows that words or figures are missing from a piece of writing. Beginner writers often use more than three dots, but the correct punctuation is only three, no more and no less.

An ellipsis is often used with quotations. It usually appears in the middle or at the end of a quotation.

For example:

There were hundreds of writers, covering every genre and style of writing, at the symposium.

There were hundreds of writers … at the symposium.

It may be used at the beginning of a quote, but only if the quotation begins mid-sentence and what follows the ellipsis makes sense without the missing words.

The ellipsis can also be used to show a pause in a sentence and/or dialogue:

Sarah cried and cried … and then cried some more. 'I wish I knew why …' she said.

When used mid-sentence, a space should be left between the first and last ellipsis marks and the surrounding words, but if a quotation tapers off (as in Sarah’s dialogue above) you should leave a space between the last letter and the first ellipsis mark, but not between the last dot and the closing quotation mark.

If words are left off the end of a sentence, indicate the omission with ellipsis marks and then indicate the end of the sentence with a full stop …. But if one or more sentences are omitted, end the sentence before the ellipsis with a full stop followed by the ellipsis marks with a space either side. …

When a quotation begins with a complete sentenc e and ends with a complete sentence, it is not necessary to use an ellipsis unless it is important to emphasize that something has been omitted.

The plural of ellipsis is ellipses, but the dots themselves are called ellipsis marks or points.