OnlineBookClub.org

I think I may never learn to use ellipses. I've looked up rules on them, but none of the guides ever seem to include how to use ellipses in conjunction with periods. Space between the final word and the first dot? Four dots including the period? Or do you leave the period out and just end the sentence with an ellipsis?

I'm generally looking for American rules, but I wouldn't mind knowing the British ones as well.

I do dot-dot-dot-space, like so:

I don't know... Do you think I should?

I capitalize the next word if it starts a new sentence, as in the above example. If if does not start a new sentence, I don't capitalize (unless it's a proper noun, or whatever):

I can't remember... if she came to the party...

I never use four dots, so I opt for leaving the period out. Here's an example with quotes:

"Wait a second..." (dot-dot-dot-close quote)

I have no idea if my way is correct, but I use it consistently and it looks good to me...

I know that the half-space is standard in English, but that's as far as I've gotten on official usage.

What's the half-space? I don't think I have that on my Microsoft Word.

Smurf, I agree with Zelda -- I have no idea what the half-space is about, but I also say that if there is a half space, you should never use it in your writing. Use only a single "regular" space.

Regarding ellipses, here are some suggestions... (ha ha)

MS-Word has a special character type of elipsis, a compressed style that has 3 periods very close together in a single unique character, and if you leave auto-correct mode ON, each time that you type an ellipsis, which is 3 regular periods together, Word will automatically replace these 3 periods with a single special character. Do NOT use this feature! Same as you should NOT use supertext for things like "3rd" where the "rd" is a supertext small special character set. Never use special characters in your writing, only "regular" typed characters.

Regarding the period after an ellipsis, various publishers use differing rules. Here are a 3 examples of a sentence ending with an ellipsis:

I don't know what to do about...
I don't know what to do about....
I don't know what to do about... .

To wit: 1st sentence ends with an ellipsis, 2nd has the ellipsis plus a period, and 3rd has a space between the ellipsis and the period. And there are other slightly different rules which require a space on either side of the ellipsis, that is, a space before it and after it, with a period:

I don't know what to do ... .

Which is essentially your question.

My recommendation is to avoid adding an extra period and also avoid spacing either before or after the ellipsis. This is the most common style and it's the easiest to use.

If and when you sell your story or novel, the publisher will later re-edit your piece in accordance with their own "house" stylebook or they will ask you to do it upon submission. Then, if there is an extra period or spacing required, it can be easily added with a search in Word. This is precisely what I'm now doing on my 3 novels, which just got sold to a publisher -- I'm revising my text slightly to comply with the publisher's stylesheet.

But you don't have to do this now. Wait till you've sold your book and then make the changes.

So... Do NOT let MS-Word insert the special character "compressed ellipsis" and turn OFF all those auto-correct features! Just use 3 simple periods, and don't put a space before or after them. And also, let the ellipsis end the sentence, whether enclosed in quotes or not. For example:

I don't know what to do...

or

"I don't know what to do..."

Okay?

Microsoft Word is attempting, when compressing your ellipses, to automatically insert the half space. The half space is giant pain to find in any word processing program I've ever seen, but its use is considered correct in a handful of situations. However, I always turn off that auto-correct feature because it doesn't work AT ALL with the text or punctuation on either side of the ellipsis.

The problem with leaving the correction to the editor is that I usually AM the editor. My master of choice is the Chicago Manual, and I have three different Chicago style guides on my desk right now, but none of them discuss how ellipses ought to interact with other punctuation. I can't take that to mean that they never do, however, because I've seen ellipses+punctuation all over the place. In Chicago Manual publications.

It makes me crazy that there's obviously a rule, and I can't find it.

smurf, check for the University of Oxford style guide. It has a section on ellipses. And it's very complete and an excellent quick reference to all sorts of mechanical rules. Understand of course that the guide is for British preferred style and so if you're submitting your work to a US publisher you'll have to adjust accordingly.

But regardless, when you place your work with a magazine or book publisher, that publisher will send you their style guide or refer you to either the Chicago Manual of Style or the NY Times style guide.

I just finished re-editing my new novel before I emailed it to the publisher, just this morning. I changed the comma after the "and" and other things per their requests, and also did some other reformatting so their proofreaders and editors would at least begin working with a copy that had already been tweaked in accordance with their stylesheet.

What I'd do is this: First turn off all auto-correct features in Word and leave them off. Remember that the best proofreading device is between your ears. Second, use the regular ellipis of 3 periods and not the compressed style that Word tries to impose on you. Finally, insert ellipses without any spaces on either side and also, don't add an extra period if the ellipsis ends a sentence. These steps are which will generally put your text on a good solid foundation.

Not putting in spaces is fairly important, because a space might induce a line break and strand the remainder of the sentence as an orphan fragment on the next line. When your book is however professionally typeset, the system will insert non-breaking spaces where needed to prevent fragmentation. But you shouldn't have to worry about that -- leave it to the automatic typesetter system.

Then, if your publisher has an alternate style guide, if your text is at least consistent throughout, making changes will be relatively easy.

Bottom line, use "regular" ellipses consisting of 3 regular periods, and don't have spaces on either side of an ellipsis. That should put you in good stead for future sales of your stories or novels or whatever.

I'm not the writer, I'm the editor. I take text submissions and prep them for web publication. There is no typesetter.

Sorry, smurf, I totally misunderstood. I thought that you were editing your own writing.

PM me with an email address and I'll send you the Oxford style guide in PDF via return email. It's got all sorts of great info and a section specifically about ellipses.

Smurfette, I'd have to agree with Zelda's_lullaby on the grammar of the ellipsis. However, I must add... it should be used as a pause in the writer's thought process, just as a comma is used for a short pause, and the period closes a thought with a pause long enough to start another thought. An ellipsis should be thought of from the receiver's point of view as the sender's gathering of thought, without being rude and interrupting it. It is the writer's way of having the listener/reader think about the message and his own interpretation of it before the writer's message is clarified.
As I used it above, it would make or should've made the lay reader quickly question, "what? -what must she add?" It is a way to build anticipation.

-- 07 Sep 2015, 18:27 --

Sorry, Smurfette, I thought you were editing your own work as well. Moderntimes is correct on the usage. The space after the ellipsis in my first reply is a keystroke error, I am on my phone and the letters as well as type, are small. Sorry. I guess you can disregard my explanation of how to use it as well, it is probably unnecessary.

There are stylebooks which require spaces on either side of the ellipsis and some want only a space after unless it's ending a sentence. It's very goofy at times. Some examples off the top of my head... (ya see, I did it right there, ha ha)

"Should we..." (no spaces)
"Should we ... " (spaces)
"Should we... " (space after but not before)
and
"Should we...." (3 periods for an ellipsis, plus a 4th period to end the sentence. Really)

My general recommendation, unless you must adhere to another style guide, is to omit all spaces unless the ellipsis is used between two sentences in one quote, per my last example below. Adding spaces can create a clumsy line break, where the 3 periods or maybe just the quote ends up on a 2nd line, like this, using a space after:

"Should we...
"

And as I said, automatic professional typesetting systems used in conventional publishing prevent this by adding a non-break space. Now you can do this in MS-Word too, but if that document is translated into another word processing system, the mandatory non-break can be lost.

Normally, I don't put spaces UNLESS I'm using the ellipsis with 2 sentences, then I put a space after, like this:

"Should we... I don't know."

Eeek!

They're used to indicate missing text or allows for pause in a piece of writing.

Ie: if you're quoting something but you only quote a part of the quote, you'd use ellipses to show there is more to the quote but you've left it off.

Ie: a character's thought or words trail off OR where there's a pause between narrative or dialogue.

Traditionally novels use a space between each dot whereas with quotes and news articles you tend not to use them (informal v formal writing)

Good post. But spaces between periods in an ellipsis haven't been used for many years, maybe a century.

For those who are typing their stuff, what you must avoid is the special character "shoved together" periods as a particular special use. Only use "regular" periods, 3 of 'em, no spaces between. Whether to use spaces before or after is an issue of different typographic styles.

All I know is there are a lot of rules around them and very few people know how to use them perfectly.

Confusing