How to Use Ellipses . . . Correctly

The symbol of three periods in a row ( . . . ) is called an ellipsis (plural: ellipses). There are two reasons you might use an ellipsis. In journalism or academic writing, you can use an ellipsis to show where you’ve left words out of a quotation. In narrative or dialogue, you can use it to show a pause or a trailing off.

Some style guides distinguish between these two uses of ellipses by calling the second suspension points. But most dictionaries consider the two terms synonymous (suspension points as a synonym for ellipsis is used more often in the UK).

Ellipses in Quotations

You can replace any word or words in quoted matter with ellipses, provided you don’t twist the meaning of the original. The edited quotation should still follow grammatical logic; that is, it should read like a plausible sentence or paragraph.

Original quotation:

Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.

Quotation with ellipses:

Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its . . . mission: . . . to boldly go where no one has gone before.

Ellipses in Narrative and Dialogue

In narrative and dialogue, an ellipsis is a moment of silence. It usually implies there’s something left unspoken.

• “Well, if you want . . . ”
• “Well, if you want.”

The first example could be the prelude to a suggestion or invitation. The second is more like a dismissal; you can picture the speaker shrugging.

Ellipses can be used when a narrator or speaker is trailing off, hesitating, or pausing for dramatic effect.

• Holmes tapped his chin with a finger, murmuring, “I wonder . . . ”
• Ratu made a face. “It feels . . . gooey.”
• Astrology has all the answers . . . if you believe in that sort of thing.

When Not to Use Ellipses

The last example would also work with a comma or a dash instead of an ellipsis. If you find yourself overusing ellipses (which is easy to do), consider whether alternatives might be just as—or more—effective.

• “No . . . I haven’t always been a pirate.”
• “No. I haven’t always been a pirate.”
• “No.” Shih turned her narrowed gaze out to sea. “I haven’t always been a pirate.”

In the first example, the ellipsis softens the no, drawing it out. In contrast, the second no is quite definite. The third uses action to convey a lengthy pause without any of the uncertainty implied by an ellipsis.

If you want to show broken dialogue, you’re probably better off using a dash. (Read all about the dash in How to Use Dashes.) Remember, an ellipsis indicates a period of silence.

• “I think . . . Never mind.”
• “I think— Never mind.”

The pause in the first example suggests the speaker is unsure of their conclusion: they hesitate, then change their mind. In the second, they catch themselves, thinking better of what they were about to say. The ellipsis is a pause; the dash is more like a glottal stop. Try reading both examples out loud.

Interrupted dialogue almost always requires a dash.

• “Whatever you do, don’t touch that—” Boom!

Ellipses are a good choice for showing hesitant, uncertain speech.

• “If . . . if you think you might like to . . . I mean, if you’re interested . . .”

But rapid, broken speech is better conveyed with dashes.

• “You—! How dare you! I— I—” he sputtered.

And stuttering is best shown with hyphens.

• “M-my t-t-toes are freezing!”

You can also use ellipses to show garbled or inaudible speech.

• Pressing an ear to the vent, Letty heard, “. . . Make our move tonight. The old lady . . . never suspect.”
• “Mayday, Mayday! This is . . . We are under attack! . . . Appears to be . . . giant squid. Repeat, giant—” kkssht.

If you want to redact a word for the sake of discretion, use a 2-em dash.

• Lady A—— is at the centre of a most shocking scandal.
• On the sound system Prince was crooning, “You sexy motherf——”

Spacing and Ellipses

There are different schools of thought on how to space ellipses. In this post, I’ve been following The Chicago Manual of Style, which recommends spaces before, between, and after the dots. The only problem with this style is that sometimes the ellipsis breaks over a line and you end up with a lone dot or two hanging at the margins of your text. To avoid this, you can insert non-breaking spaces between the dots.

Not everybody follows Chicago on ellipses. Robert Bringhurst, author of The Elements of Typographic Style, calls Chicago’s spacing “a Victorian eccentricity.” He prefers thinner spaces, ones that vary with the size and weight of the font. And the AP style guide likes to save room by using no spaces at all.

For most people, the easiest choice is to use the ellipsis glyph, or symbol, included in most fonts. In Word, three periods typed in a row are automatically changed to an ellipsis symbol; as a single glyph, it won’t break over lines. You’ll usually want to put a space before and after (but see the next section for exceptions).

Here’s what different approaches look like in the Times font:

• Chicago style: “Yeah . . . I guess.”
• AP style: “Yeah ... I guess.”
• Word glyph: “Yeah … I guess.”

Punctuation With Ellipses

The “space on either side of an ellipsis” rule sometimes gets bent when other punctuation is involved.

In quotations (as opposed to dialogue or narrative), a period may be included to show the end of a sentence, creating a row of four dots. Note that there is no space between the final word and the period.

Original:

• In the words of Beyoncé, “The reality is: sometimes you lose. And you’re never too good to lose. You’re never too big to lose. You’re never too smart to lose. It happens.”

With ellipses:

• In the words of Beyoncé, “The reality is: sometimes you lose. . . . You’re never too good to lose. You’re never too big to lose. . . . It happens.”

(Note that you’re is capitalized in the second version.)

This four-dots convention does not apply to sentences that are trailing off or deliberately left incomplete. So in dialogue and narrative, don’t use periods with your ellipses.

• “I’m not sure . . .”
• With friends like these . . .

Note in the first example the lack of a space before the closing quotation mark. With other punctuation, keep the usual spaces around the ellipsis.

• “Are you . . . ?”
• “No . . . ,” he said slowly.
• “Oh! . . . Okay.”

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Ornamental Quotations

Those short quotations you see at the beginning of a chapter (or a book, or a section) are called epigraphs. Below I’ll talk about how to format them, where to source them, and when it’s okay to use them.

Sweet is revenge—especially to women.

Lord Byron, Don Juan

What an Epigraph Isn’t

Epigraphs are used to set a tone for what follows, unlike a regular quotation, which is usually included to support an argument. If you want to stick a quotation in the middle of your text because it perfectly expresses your point, that’s not an epigraph. Treat it as you would a normal quotation.

• I’ve never felt the need to adhere to any particular artistic dogma. As Oscar Wilde said, “Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.”

An epigraph, in contrast, always goes before something, like an appetizer to the main course.

How to Format an Epigraph

Epigraph styles vary with the tastes of typographers and book designers, but there are still a couple of rules you should follow.

First, throw away those quotation marks. Like a block quotation, an epigraph is differentiated from the rest of the text typographically—for example, with italics, a different font or font size, or (as in this post) extra indentation. Because of this, you don’t need quotation marks to tell the reader it’s not a regular part of the text.

Another reason the reader doesn’t need quotation marks is that the epigraph is followed by its source (i.e., who said it), usually on the next line. The credit line generally includes the author’s name (maybe just their last name if they’re famous enough) and the title of the work. (For formatting titles, see Italics, Hamlet, and Buffy and How to Capitalize Titles.)

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
—Thoreau, Walden

There are a number of other conventions in formatting epigraphs, but they’re largely optional. For example, many people put an em dash at the beginning of the credit line, while others simply hit the Tab key.

There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside you.
—Zora Neale Hurston, Dust Tracks on a Road

We read books to find out who we are.

Ursula K. Le Guin

In APA style, often used by publishers in the social sciences, the credit line is right justified, that is, pushed up against the right margin.

This is what divorce is: taking things you no longer want from people you no longer love.

—Zadie Smith, White Teeth

Some sources, like religious texts, don’t lend themselves to the standard author-title format. They usually follow different conventions in the credit line.

My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies.
—Song of Solomon 2:16 (King James Version)

You may need to decide for yourself, case by case, what source information is most relevant.

Here’s looking at you, kid.
—Rick Blaine in Casablanca

Whichever epigraph style you choose, be sure all the epigraphs in your work are formatted the same. And if you decide to use an epigraph before one chapter or section, you should do the same for all of them. If that seems overwhelming, choose just one or two epigraphs and put them at the very beginning of your book.

Sourcing Epigraphs: Did They Really Say That?

The Internet, as we all know, is a sink of misinformation. Any quotation can be posted online and replicated endlessly, whether it’s real or completely fabricated. There are even blogs that specialize in exposing misattributed quotations, such as That’s. Not. Shakespeare. and Fake Buddha Quotes.

If you’ve found a pithy quotation you think will make a great epigraph, before you use it, double-check the source. My rule of thumb is that the more detailed the attribution, the more credible the quote. Look for credit lines that include not just the author but the title of the work and, even better, the chapter and page number (or act and scene for a play, stanza and line for a poem, etc.).

Of course, the only way to be completely certain of an attribution is to find a copy of the original text yourself. E-books are extremely useful for sourcing quotations because you can use the Search function to find a specific phrase. Or you can go to your local library and find a book of quotations by a reputable publisher.

Sometimes a quote simply lacks any credible attribution. Maybe its origin has been lost in the mists of time, or maybe it’s been repeated so many times there’s no way to determine who said it first. In such cases, write Unknown in the credit line, or include whatever information is available.

Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.
—Unknown

Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.
—African-American proverb

Epigraphs and Copyright

Should you worry about copyright infringement when choosing an epigraph? Here’s what the Chicago Manual of Style has to say:

Quotation in the form of an epigraph does not fit neatly into any of the usual fair-use categories but is probably fair use by virtue of scholarly and artistic tradition.

So you probably won’t get sued, if only because the practice of using epigraphs is so well established. However, if you want to be completely safe, choose sources that are old enough to be in the public domain. The number of years varies by country, but generally speaking anything over 150 years old is probably copyright free.

Should you find a wise critic to point out your faults, follow him as you would a guide to hidden treasure.
—The Buddha

Finally, beware of getting caught up in thoughtless overdecoration. Ask yourself, Do I really need an epigraph here? Unless you’ve found a quote that’s particularly apt or that sets the perfect tone in a way nothing else does, you might be better off without one.

Exit, pursued by a bear.
—Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale

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How to Use Dashes

There are two kinds of dashes you’re likely to need in your writing—em dashes and en dashes. Neither is the same as a hyphen, so don’t think you can substitute without anyone noticing. An en dash is traditionally the length of a letter n, while em dashes are—you guessed it—the length of an M.

- hyphen
– en dash
— em dash

Cats make great roommates—if you don’t mind the smoking—and terrible landlords.

The Em Dash—An Interruption

The em dash is what most of us think of when we think of dashes—a break in the flow of the sentence. It’s often used as a colon, to introduce or expand on what came before (see Colon vs. Semicolon for more on colons), as in the last sentence and in this section’s heading.

Em dashes commonly work in pairs to set off a word or phrase from the rest of the sentence. They’re a little more emphatic than a pair of commas but a little less off-topic than parentheses.

• Cats make great roommates—if you don’t mind the smoking—and terrible landlords.

In dialogue, a pair of em dashes can make room for an action, and a single em dash can show interrupted or faltering speech. (For more examples, see How to Punctuate Dialogue.)

• “He said he’d be walking the thylacine”—Shareena checked her phone—“right about now.”
• “Whatever you do, don’t push that—”

Occasionally, an em dash follows a word or words that introduce a sentence’s main clause.

• Revenge—that was the sisters’ goal.
• Aliens, spaceships, face-eating fungi—nothing fazed Felipe.

Em dashes are often put before the source of a quotation, though they are not obligatory.

If you can’t say anything nice, come sit by me.

—Dorothy Parker

Revenge—that was the sisters’ goal.

The Dash With Other Punctuation

When a comma, semicolon, or period falls next to a dash, the dash shoulders it off the page. But when a pair of dashes encloses a phrase ending in an exclamation point or question mark, that punctuation can stay.

• Your combat skills are inferior—at least, inferior to mine—but your fashion sense is unrivalled. (No comma before but.)
• Spade unwrapped a black bird—could it be the Maltese falcon?—and casually set it on his desk.
• It’s not like I have a crush on him—as if!—but he does have nice hair.

The En Dash

En dashes are used to express ranges, where you might otherwise write from…to… or between…and…. They can also be used instead of to.

• The average human heart weighs 250–300 grams.
• Randy’s Roller Disco is open Tuesday–Sunday.
• Eartha Kitt played Catwoman in the 1967–68 season of Batman.
• The Rome–Sydney flight was cursed by a jet-lagged strega.
• Our impromptu game of “flaming quidditch” ended in a score of 7–3 and a visit to the ER.

What you don’t want to do is combine en dashes with from or between. Use words or dashes, not both.

• The Countess plans to travel incognito from April 6–May 12. X
• Emile and his imps serve coffee daily from 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. ✓
• Don’t go near the castle August–October. ✓

• Mastering spatula combat can take between 3–4 years. X
• Improving your diction will require between 10 and 15 marbles. ✓
• Each morning I believe 5–7 impossible things before breakfast. ✓

Eartha Kitt played Catwoman in the 1967–68 season of Batman.

Dashes, Typography, and Spacing

The equivalent of an em dash in typescript--in case you’re stranded on a desert island with only a typewriter--is two hyphens. As for en dashes, you can probably get away with using a hyphen instead—in fact, the Associated Press prefers it. However, there’s no reason to be old-fashioned when you have a computer at your disposal. Programs like Word automatically transform two hyphens--without spaces--into an em dash and a single hyphen - with spaces - into an en dash. (More on this below.) Since computers can’t always read your mind, it’s good to know the keyboard shortcuts:

Mac

En dash: Alt + Hyphen

Em dash: Alt + Shift + Hyphen

Windows (use numeric keypad)

En dash: Alt + 0150

Em dash: Alt + 0151

Should you put spaces around your dashes? Most American style guides, including The Chicago Manual of Style, prefer closed em dashes—that is, em dashes without spaces. But many British publishers use open en dashes – that is, en dashes with spaces – instead, and The Elements of Typographic Style considers the open en dash aesthetically superior to the em dash.

Though the closed em dash is more widely used, both are correct, so the choice is up to you. However, don’t put spaces around your en dashes when they are expressing ranges or to; such en dashes should always be closed.

Your combat skills are inferior—at least, inferior to mine—but your fashion sense is unrivalled.

A final word on dashes—try not to use too many. It may be tempting—they're so handy—but more than one or two per page—three at most—will look choppy and may distract your reader. I am, myself, occasionally guilty of overusing the dash. I have certainly done so in this post—purely for pedagogical purposes, of course.