14

For example, if Peter is my source, should I say:

Peter mentioned his '... unquenchable thirst, a fatigued body...' as being part of the reason for his actions.

Or would I have to leave out the ellipses?

Improve this question
1
  • 2
    In the given case, ellipses are unnecessary and awkward. Maybe even incorrect.
    – Kris
    Sep 13, 2012 at 11:01

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
8

No, you would leave out the ellipses there.

The Purdue OWL has a page about this; it lists this example:

According to Foulkes's study, dreams may express 'profound aspects of personality'.

Even if you aren't quoting Peter's remarks in their entirety, you don't need to use ellipses, because your sentence is structured in a way that shows you are only using a small segment of his overall quotation (much like the preceding example).

The same site goes on to say:

If you omit a word or words from a quotation, you should indicate the deleted word or words by using ellipsis marks.

So, if Peter had said:

I quit because of my unquenchable thirst, a bad blister on my foot, and a fatigued body.

then you might say:

Peter mentioned his 'unquenchable thirst ... and a fatigued body' as being part of the reason for his actions.

Going back to your example, there is another way you could structure the sentence, to avoid the awkwardness of the article a:

Peter mentioned his 'unquenchable thirst' and 'fatigued body' as being part of the reason for his actions.

Improve this answer
4
  • 2
    Note that in the example you provide with an ellipsis, MLA very reasonably requires the dots of ellipsis themselves to be enclosed in brackets, thus "[...]" so that the reader understands that you have supplied them and they do not appear in the original.
    – StoneyB on hiatus
    Sep 13, 2012 at 11:59
  • @StoneyB: Excellent addition - thanks for pointing that out. That rule doesn't apply, though, if you're quoting someone's spoken words, as opposed to taking a quote from a book. (In this instance, I was imagining Peter as an athlete with a microphone in his face, and the author as a sports reporter; in that scenario, there's no need to bracket the ellipsis.)
    – J.R.
    Sep 13, 2012 at 12:26
  • 1
    I suspect that the Purdue site either has not yet been fully aligned with the 2009 revision, or reflects the less demanding undergraduate version. In any case, I would say that the brackets are particularly necessary in quoting spoken words, because the ". . ." is often used with a different sense: to indicate a long pause.
    – StoneyB on hiatus
    Sep 13, 2012 at 13:16
  • @StoneyB: If I was writing a research paper for a pharmaceuticals conference, I'd probably write it as you suggest. If I was a sports reporter quoting an athlete as I simulated above, I'd leave the ellipsis unbracketed. If you were my editor and demanded they be bracketed, I'd defer to your authority, but my gut feeling would still be that a bracketed ellipsis would appear unnecessarily overpunctuated on a sports page.
    – J.R.
    Sep 13, 2012 at 14:13
14

One generally does not place an ellipsis at the beginning of a quotation to indicate the omission of material, because it is usually evident (as in your example) that the quotation is only part of the original.

However you should use an ellipsis if the words as they appear in your quotation could be mistaken for a complete sentence, but in the original are only part of a longer sentence.

This page has a good example of where you should use ellipsis in the beginning of a quote:

Let's say the original is "I am here, and I am ready."

Here's how I could quote the sentence or part of it.

  • He said, "I am here, and I am ready." (no ellipsis)

  • He said, "[...] I am ready." (ellipsis before the quoted words because the quotation appears as a complete sentence in my writing, but the sentence I quote is actually part of a longer sentence, with the words that I deleted from the original in front of the words I quote)

  • He said, "I am here [...]." (ellipsis after the words I quote because the quoted words constitute a complete sentence as I present them, but in the original passage, there is actually more to the sentence after the words I quote)

Sources:

http://www.kentlaw.edu/academics/lrw/grinker/LwtaEllipses.htm http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/marks/ellipsis.htm http://www2.ivcc.edu/rambo/eng1001/quotes2.htm

Improve this answer
0

In general, it is not necessary to put ellipses at the beginning or end of a quote. Any quote is an excerpt from a larger statement. We know you are not quoting everything that the person ever said or wrote in his life: it is not necessary to tell us that this person said other things before and after what you are quoting.

Personally, though -- and I can't give a reference on this, it is just my opinion -- I do include ellipses when I am leaving out potentially relevant material, even if it comes at the beginning or end.

For example:

Dr Jones said that "the nations that fall in this category are Britain, Nigeria, Columbia, ..."

For my purposes in the quote I may only care about these three, but if he listed others, it could be misleading to end the quote without some indication that the list continued.

Improve this answer
4
  • 1
    In this example, it might be better to use [and others] in packets rather than ellipses.
    – Peter Shor
    Jan 31, 2022 at 18:40
  • @PeterShor Fair enough. Probably not the best example.
    – Jay
    Jan 31, 2022 at 19:52
  • That was supposed to be brackets. Stupid spell-checker miscorrects my typos.
    – Peter Shor
    Jan 31, 2022 at 21:31
  • 1
    @PeterShor You know I read it as "brackets". My internal auto-correct corrected the auto-correct. :-)
    – Jay
    Feb 1, 2022 at 4:34

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.