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Many features distinguish the language used at university from other languages. Think about the language you use in novels, conversations, and law courts. Each style has its style with different degrees of objectivity and formality.

The most important consideration when it comes to academic text quotes is ellipses in quotations. When To Use Ellipses In Quotes? The complete information is available in Penn Book.

When To Use Ellipses In Quotes?

Using Ellipsis in MLA Style

Quotations must sometimes be decontextualized. Ellipsis: (). Indicating omission. MLA demands ellipsis before and after multi-word quotes. If the quote doesn’t match the source, writers don’t require an ellipsis.

Writers who don’t need ellipsis include: “Government of people, by people, for people” was Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. The writer is not quoting the speech.

MLA advises writers to avoid grammatical errors and omissions that change the meaning of quoted text.

Ellipsis in MLA within a Sentence

Three periods with one space between them. MLA preserves punctuation before and after omissions. Below, the introductory phrase remains.

Original: After years of self-doubt and corporate codependency, our creative energies awaken with astonishing intensity and poignancy.

Parts Omitted: “Dampened by years of self-distrust,… those energies awaken with startling power and poignancy” (Bryan, Cameron, and Allen 188).

Ellipsis at the End of a Sentence

For an MLA ellipsis, where the omitted material appears at the end of a sentence, you must type three periods. You should use space between each period. Then add the closing quotation marks immediately following the third period. The period that will be used to close your sentence is after the parenthetical reference.

Original: It also requires you to listen to emotions, not just to facts, and to understand the players – speaker and audience –
intended and otherwise.

Parts Omitted: Bryan, Cameron, and Allen emphasize that listening “. . . requires you to listen to emotions . . .” (147).

If the sentence ends with omitted material and no parenthetical reference is used, the ellipsis will include four periods, with no space between the first and last.

Ex. Winston Churchill in a speech that became known as We Shall Fight on the Beaches declared, “We shall go on to the end,
we shall fight in France . . . we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and
in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender. . . .”

Ellipsis Within a Paragraph

MLA-style paragraph quoting may require omitting sentences. Any sentence that ends with an omission can use the ellipsis.

Why are airports so hard to navigate? Terminals, gates, and up-down. Intelligent people get lost. Anxious, jet-lagged people are hopeless.

Why can’t you hire someone to navigate the airport like you can a plane ticket? Better still, airport safaris.

“On a side note, why are airports so difficult to navigate?. . Intelligent people get lost. Anxious, jet-lagged people are hopeless.” Jones 1.

If the omission occurs in the middle or last sentence, incorporate the ellipsis and punctuation to make the quote make sense.

Why are airports so hard to navigate? Terminals, gates, and up-down. Intelligent people get lost. Anxious, jet-lagged people are hopeless. Why can’t you hire someone to navigate the airport like you can a plane ticket? Better yet,

“On a side note,… you can hire people to navigate the process of buying a plane ticket, but why can’t you hire someone to navigate the airport?” Jones 1

Grammar requires a comma in the first sentence to keep the introductory phrase outside.

Note.

Original: The French teacher taught me the most–he gave an update on the situation in the North. Though peace has come,
the war left its toll. He said that students aren’t learning in school because they did not receive basic training from their
parents–there was no time or thought for training while they were being killed or avoiding being abducted.

Parts Omitted: “The French teacher taught me the most[:] . . . He said that students aren’t learning in school because they
did not receive basic training from their parents” (Jones 1).

[The colon is placed in brackets to indicate that an addition was made to complete the sentence.

It is grammatically correct. The sentence would not be complete without it. You could also keep the dash.

Ellipsis in Poetry

If a whole line is missing from a poem, MLA includes an ellipse line for poetry.

Parts Omitted from the Poem:

Collins’ poem Marginalia shows the lovely side comments many writers use.

Sometimes the notes are ferocious, skirmishes against the author raging along the borders of every page in tiny black script.

Sometimes the notes are ferocious, raging along the borders of every page in tiny black script. (1, 3-4)

Ellipses in Work that Includes Ellipsis

Include ellipses in brackets if the original work contains them. . [.] To distinguish between yours & the authors.

Original: I had an experience I can’t prove, I can’t even explain it, but everything . . . tells me that it was real. I was part of
something wonderful, something that changed me forever; a vision of the Universe that tells us undeniably how tiny, and
insignificant, and how rare and precious we all are.

Parts Omitted: “I had an experience I can’t prove, I can’t even explain it, but everything . . . tells me that it was real. I was
part of something wonderful, [. . .] a vision of the Universe that tells us undeniably how tiny, and insignificant, and how rare
and precious we all are” (Contact 231).

Practice Exercises

To replace the underlined material, use an ellipsis for each of these.

When you write your paper, it is important to understand your audience and keep them in mind. Sometimes your instructor will dictate your audience. Other times, you can choose your audience. You’ll need to learn how to adapt your writing to each audience.

Summer Leibensperger, “Define the Purpose. Consider the Audience. and Develop the Thesis” is on the second page.

The model’s theoretical structure is crucial. However, it is important to recognize that each learner has a unique style and that instructional methods must be adapted.

From page 205 in DeBello’s “Comparison of Eleven Major Learning Styles Models” copyrighted 1990.

The thought police would get him just the same. He had committed would have committed, even if he had never set pen to paper the essential crime that contained all others in itself. Thought crime, they called it.

From page 19 in Orwell’s book 1984.

I wish I could explain this place to you . . . everywhere is green and in the near distance a great mountain juts out against the sky, beckoning.
From page 3 Karalyn Jones’ blog, copyrighted 2008

Answers

You not only must understand your audience but also keep this audience in mind at all times as you draft your paper and adapt your writing to that audience”

DeBello considers that the model is founded party on the idea “. . . that individual styles must be assessed, and that, if a learner is going to have the best opportunity to learn, instructional techniques must be used that are congruent with each student’s style” (205).

“The thought police would get him just the same. He had committed . . . the essential crime that contained all others in itself. Thought crime, they called it.” (Orwell 19)

“I wish I could explain this place to you . . . everywhere is green and [. . .] a great mountain juts out against the sky, beckoning” (Jones 3).

Using Ellipsis in APA Style

An Ellipsis at the Beginning or End of a Quotation

An ellipsis is not required at the end or beginning of a quote, even if it is quoting within a sentence. One exception is when you must include an ellipsis at the beginning or end of a quotation to avoid misinterpretation. This isn’t usually required. Here’s an example is taken from an article on high-performing employees or “stars”.

Original sentence: “Stars have disproportionately high and prolonged performance, visibility, and relevant social capital, and there are minimum thresholds for each that must be attained to be a star.”

Correct use: One theory of exceptional employee behavior posits that star employees “have disproportionately high and prolonged performance, visibility, and relevant social capital” (Call, Nyberg, & Thatcher, 2015, p. 630).

Incorrect use: One theory of exceptional employee behavior posits that star employees “. . . have disproportionately high and prolonged performance, visibility, and relevant social capital. . .” (Call, Nyberg, & Thatcher, 2015, p. 630).

An Ellipsis in the Middle of a Quotation

To indicate that you have removed material from the quoted sentence, use an ellipsis at the end of the quotation. This is possible if the quote contains a digression that is not relevant to your point. To preserve the original meaning of your sentence, however, you should be careful when omitting material.

You can change the capitalization or lowercase of the first letter when quoting. This depends on the purpose of your sentence. This example shows both the proper use of an “ellipsis” and the change in capitalization for that first letter.

Original sentence: “Some industries have formal rankings that broadcast the best and brightest workers (e.g., analyst rankings in Institutional Investor), and some organizations provide companywide performance results and publicly recognize top performers.”

Correct use: To make a high-performing employee visible to the community, “some industries have formal rankings that broadcast the best and brightest workers . . ., and some organizations provide companywide performance results and publicly recognize top performers” (Call et al., 2015, p. 629).

Incorrect use: To make a high-performing employee visible to the community, “Some industries have formal rankings that broadcast the best and brightest workers, and some organizations provide companywide performance results and publicly recognize top performers” (Call et al., 2015, p. 629).

An Ellipsis for a Quotation Spanning Multiple Sentences

One longer quote might be repeated in multiple sentences. To indicate an omission between two sentences, use four ellipsis points instead of three. The first point is the beginning of the quoted sentence. The three spaced ellipsis marks follow.

Original sentences: “Beyond competitive pay and deep networks, stars more than others may be motivated to remain with organizations that provide opportunities to influence others or be involved in strategic decision-making.

For example, a star union leader who is trusted to negotiate on behalf of membership may be motivated by nonfinancial opportunities, such as the chance to be seen as a leader, and hence, appealing to self-enhancement and self-expansion motives as described earlier. Thus, providing such influence opportunities may help organizations retain stars more than they help retain other employees.”

Correct use: Call et al. (2015) theorized that star employees “may be motivated to remain with organizations that provide opportunities to influence others or be involved in strategic decision-making. . . . providing such influence opportunities may help organizations retain stars more than they help retain other employees” (p. 633).

Incorrect use: Call et al. (2015) theorized that star employees “may be motivated to remain with organizations that provide opportunities to influence others or be involved in strategic decision-making . . . providing such influence opportunities may help organizations retain stars more than they help retain other employees” (p. 633).

FAQs

How do you use ellipses in a quote?

To make a quote mean something else than the author intended, use ellipses. When the dots are added after a sentence, include the ending punctuation. You can leave out spaces between and before the ellipsis point or between them.

When should you use ellipsis points in quoted texts?

When should ellipses be used?

When you want to omit a word, phrase, or line from a quoted passage, use an ellipsis. Ellipses can be used to save space or remove less important material. They can be useful in getting to the point quickly and without distraction. Full quote: “Today, after hours of careful thought, I vetoed this bill.”

Can you use ellipses in a title?

We add an ellipsis to the first part of a title to reduce it to a shorter length in works-cited-list entries. We might add an alternative title to the work.

Conclusion

Ellipses can be used in quotes to indicate something has been omitted or to create a sense of suspense. They can also indicate that the speaker is trailing off into silence. Thank you for reading!

See more: https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/punctuation/punctuation/index.html

When To Use Ellipses In Quotes? Best Full Guide and Tips 2024