This Post is About . . .

. . .

. . . when three periods are lined up in this way (. . .), this is known as an ellipsis. When placed at the end of a sentence, a period is added afterwards, making (. . . .). After the semicolon, the comma, and the exclamation point, the ellipsis is probably the most misunderstood punctuation mark in English. Here's a basic breakdown of when and where to use an ellipsis.


     1. When shortening a quotation

          For example, in an earlier post , I quoted Gail Carson Levine's saying "The best way to write better is to write more. The best way to write more is to write whenever you have five minutes and wherever you find a chair and a pen and paper or your computer." For simplicity's sake, I easily could have written "The best way to write better is to write . . . whenever you have five minutes and wherever you find a chair and a pen and paper or your computer." This is perfectly fine as long as my omission does not change the original meaning of the quotation. That would be dishonest.

     2. When indicating a pause in dialogue

         "I couldn't give it to her . . . what I mean is . . . oh I don't know what I'm saying!" something like that. Be warned that readers tire of this kind of construction very quickly, so make sure you know what you're doing when you use an ellipsis this way.

     3. When something is left out of speech

        In the title of this post, I did not finish the sentence. Instead, I used an ellipsis. This is grammatically allowable, but carries the same caution as rule number two. If every sentence ends with an ellipsis, it'll look like the writer is trying to be funny, which isn't something one should try. While humor in books is great, it won't be if it seems like the humor is forced.

     As mentioned, the biggest issue you face with using the ellipsis is that one gets used to it quickly, and it starts to look/sound boring. Also, even though people do have pauses in their speech, that doesn't mean a writer should try and use an ellipsis in place of every other comma. The trick is to use the right punctuation over the stuff that "looks good."


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