ELLIPSIS AND BRACKETS
Although knowing how to use ellipses and brackets is crucial, writers should work hard to avoid using them for the most part. Too much bracketing looks like boxes and too many ellipses looks like someone sprinkled pepper all over a page. Consider punctuation a necessary evil. Reduce or eliminate distractions.
First of all, MLA asks for two different structures of ellipses. Ellipses that interrupt the flow inside of a single sentence have spaces between centered periods.
Consider this example:
“Thanks to the popularity of social media, thoughts once kept private or whispered among friends are now out there for the world to see, often in 140 characters or less” (4).
If you want to remove a bit of text in the middle of the sentence, it would look like this:
“Thanks to the popularity of social media, thoughts once kept private . . . are now out there for the world to see, often in 140 characters or less ” (4).
Secondly, MLA has a different structure for ellipses that end a sentence. There is no space between the word before the ellipses and the first period. And there will be four periods: three form the ellipses and the fourth serves as the final period.
Consider this example:
“Thanks to the popularity of social media, thoughts once kept private or whispered among friends are now out there for the world to see, often in 140 characters or less. And school leaders face great uncertainty as they try to catch up with, intercept, and respond to online misbehavior” (4).
If you want to remove the last part of that first sentence, it would look like this:
“Thanks to the popularity of social media, thoughts once kept private or whispered among friends are now out there for the world to see. . . . And school leaders face great uncertainty as they try to catch up with, intercept, and respond to online misbehavior” (4).
Now consider this example:
She flirted with him in a confident way that Will had never experienced before; ". . . her mouth moved into a smile that was oddly mocking and almost inviting. . . . She was really too provocative . . . her look so bold and direct, and she even tossed her head as if to say, 'So what if he is the son of the C.D. It means nothing to me'" (23).
The ellipses make this passage needlessly busy. Here is a revision:
She flirted with him in a confident way that Will had never experienced before; "her mouth moved into a smile that was oddly mocking and almost inviting.” Leora “was really too provocative,” with a demeanor “so bold and direct” that “she even tossed her head as if to say, 'So what if he is the son of the C.D. It means nothing to me'" (23).
Notice in the above revision how I added my own words in ways that made the ellipses unnecessary.
Brackets, much like ellipses, are to be used minimally. Too many make a text appear to be all boxed up. You mostly bracket in narration quotes where the pronouns need to be changed for the sake of clarity. Using the dialogue quote structure can help eliminate over bracketing.
Consider this example:
The lion “chomps down on [Jacob’s arm]”, scaring him, and “August [laughs] uproariously behind [him]”, as it was August’s intention to scare Jacob for questioning his authority (85, 86).
First of all, commas typically go inside quotation marks, so the comma placement is incorrect. And since “as” is a condition word, the third clause is dependent, which means the comma after the bracketed “him” needs to be removed.
Here is a revision:
The lion “chomps down on [Jacob’s arm],” scaring him, and “August [laughs] uproariously behind [him]" as it was August’s intention to scare Jacob for questioning his authority (85, 86).
Because these brackets are so distracting, here is another revision:
The lion “chomps down” on Jacob’s arm, scaring him, and August laughs “uproariously behind” him as it was August’s intention to scare Jacob for questioning his authority (85, 86).
Page Numbers in Parenthesis:
Notice also that the page numbers in the parenthesis in the above example are (85, 86), not (85-86). The two structures are reporting two different things.
The parenthetical (85, 86) indicates that the first section of the quote comes entirely from page 85. The quote does not continue on to page 86. The second part of the quote can be found in its entirety on page 86.
The parenthetical (85-86) indicates that the quote begins on page 85 and continues uninterrupted to page 86.
First of all, MLA asks for two different structures of ellipses. Ellipses that interrupt the flow inside of a single sentence have spaces between centered periods.
Consider this example:
“Thanks to the popularity of social media, thoughts once kept private or whispered among friends are now out there for the world to see, often in 140 characters or less” (4).
If you want to remove a bit of text in the middle of the sentence, it would look like this:
“Thanks to the popularity of social media, thoughts once kept private . . . are now out there for the world to see, often in 140 characters or less ” (4).
Secondly, MLA has a different structure for ellipses that end a sentence. There is no space between the word before the ellipses and the first period. And there will be four periods: three form the ellipses and the fourth serves as the final period.
Consider this example:
“Thanks to the popularity of social media, thoughts once kept private or whispered among friends are now out there for the world to see, often in 140 characters or less. And school leaders face great uncertainty as they try to catch up with, intercept, and respond to online misbehavior” (4).
If you want to remove the last part of that first sentence, it would look like this:
“Thanks to the popularity of social media, thoughts once kept private or whispered among friends are now out there for the world to see. . . . And school leaders face great uncertainty as they try to catch up with, intercept, and respond to online misbehavior” (4).
Now consider this example:
She flirted with him in a confident way that Will had never experienced before; ". . . her mouth moved into a smile that was oddly mocking and almost inviting. . . . She was really too provocative . . . her look so bold and direct, and she even tossed her head as if to say, 'So what if he is the son of the C.D. It means nothing to me'" (23).
The ellipses make this passage needlessly busy. Here is a revision:
She flirted with him in a confident way that Will had never experienced before; "her mouth moved into a smile that was oddly mocking and almost inviting.” Leora “was really too provocative,” with a demeanor “so bold and direct” that “she even tossed her head as if to say, 'So what if he is the son of the C.D. It means nothing to me'" (23).
Notice in the above revision how I added my own words in ways that made the ellipses unnecessary.
Brackets, much like ellipses, are to be used minimally. Too many make a text appear to be all boxed up. You mostly bracket in narration quotes where the pronouns need to be changed for the sake of clarity. Using the dialogue quote structure can help eliminate over bracketing.
Consider this example:
The lion “chomps down on [Jacob’s arm]”, scaring him, and “August [laughs] uproariously behind [him]”, as it was August’s intention to scare Jacob for questioning his authority (85, 86).
First of all, commas typically go inside quotation marks, so the comma placement is incorrect. And since “as” is a condition word, the third clause is dependent, which means the comma after the bracketed “him” needs to be removed.
Here is a revision:
The lion “chomps down on [Jacob’s arm],” scaring him, and “August [laughs] uproariously behind [him]" as it was August’s intention to scare Jacob for questioning his authority (85, 86).
Because these brackets are so distracting, here is another revision:
The lion “chomps down” on Jacob’s arm, scaring him, and August laughs “uproariously behind” him as it was August’s intention to scare Jacob for questioning his authority (85, 86).
Page Numbers in Parenthesis:
Notice also that the page numbers in the parenthesis in the above example are (85, 86), not (85-86). The two structures are reporting two different things.
The parenthetical (85, 86) indicates that the first section of the quote comes entirely from page 85. The quote does not continue on to page 86. The second part of the quote can be found in its entirety on page 86.
The parenthetical (85-86) indicates that the quote begins on page 85 and continues uninterrupted to page 86.