The Ellipsis

Do you ever make notes for a test and realize how much unnecessary information is in the text? Or, conduct an interview where your interviewee has talked for an hour, when you really only need a couple of snappy quotations?

The CP stylebook offers guidelines to properly use the ellipsis. The ellipsis is the use of three periods to indicate an omission, preceded and followed by a space. The ellipsis is an efficient way to indicate an omission from your text or quotations. In condensing a text, use an ellipsis at the beginning, inside or at the end of a sentence. Except when writing news stories, use an ellipsis only inside a sentence. If it is at the end, put the punctuation before the ellipsis.

I wanted to share the CP guidelines on ellipsis with my friends. I just signed up for a twitter account, and I was going to tweet about ellipses. I don’t know how to write in the Twitterverse yet, but I figure I will learn. But, I realized 140 characters is not a lot. I don’t know how I can possibly convey everything I have to say about ellipses in this format.

Maybe, “The CP stylebook offers guidelines to properly use the ellipsis … to indicate an omission from a text or quotation.” Seems like an efficient tweet. I don’t think it’s worthy to retweet, but it gets the point of my entry across. At least it sums up this post in 19 words, right?

“… Sums up this post … right…?” I mean, “… Sums up this post … right?...” I don’t think I like the ellipsis anymore. I think the ellipsis along with twitter may be detrimental to my writing style. Both have the potential to stifle my writing. Make of it what you will. Remember to follow these CP rules when using ellipses.