1. Use an ellipsis to show an omission, or leaving out, of a word or words in a quote. Use ellipses to shorten the quote without changing the meaning.
For example:
Shorten the quote by replacing a few words with an ellipsis. Remember, the meaning of the quote should not change.
We removed the words "which was a few blocks away" and replaced them with an ellipsis without changing the meaning of the original quote.
2. Use an ellipsis to show a pause in a thought or to create suspense. (Suspense is when a reader is excited to know what is going to happen next.)
Examples:
This use of ellipses is very common in informal (friendly) letters and emails.
3. Use an ellipsis to show a break, or trailing off, of a thought.
Examples:
4. Use an ellipsis with a period to shorten a quote.
If the ellipsis is followed by a period, then you will have 4 dots.
For example:
5. Use an ellipsis with a question mark after a trailing thought.
Examples:
6. Use an ellipsis with an exclamation point to show excitement after a pause.
Examples:
An ellipsis is made of three dots called ellipsis points. Ellipses are exactly three dots, not two or four.
1) On a word processor, type three periods with spaces in between.
period-space-period-space-period-space
This type of ellipsis is usually used to show a pause or a trailing thought as in the examples in rules 2 and 3 above.
Examples:
2) Many word processing programs will automatically create ellipses if you type three periods in a row. Just type a space, three periods, and a second space and move on to the next word. The ellipsis will look smaller than three spaced out periods.
Correct: We went to the city … and arrived home after midnight.
The word processing program automatically created an ellipsis when I typed three periods without spaces in between.
3) If the ellipsis is in the place of a word or part of a sentence, leave a space on each side of the ellipsis.
For example:
4) If the ellipsis is used to replace words at the end of a sentence, it should be followed by a period (.), question mark (?) or exclamation point (!) to end the sentence.
In summary, the ellipsis is a form of punctuation used in writing the English language. It can be used to show an omission, to show a pause or create suspense, or to show a break in a thought. An ellipsis is made by using three periods in a row.