Is it okay to use an ellipsis?

College Essays
1

<p>I used an ellipsis a few times in my common app essay. Is this okay with colleges?</p>

2

<p>I am an author and I love using ellipses, probably too much! I think it can be OK in an essay, BUT…</p>

<p>What does “a few times in my common app essay” mean? Two? Three? Four? More? I think one is fine in an essay of 500 words, two might be permissible, but more? Can you give an example of how you used it?</p>

3

<p>^ Yeah special grammatical constructions such as ellipses should only be used for special instances. One or maybe two may be okay, but more would be overusing them and would probably distract the reader.</p>

4

<p>I agree with digmedia. It’s OK to use ellipsis, but probably not repeatedly. </p>

<p>I am reminded of a girl who was a student in my ninth grade English class many years ago. By just about this point in the school year, I finally had to tell her, "Here’s the situation, Ashley: I’m allowing you no more than five exclamation points to use in English class for the rest of the year, and I don’t want to see any two of them next to each other. "</p>

5

<p>Sikorsky -
I LOVE IT!</p>

6

<p>Haha I didn’t really abuse it. I used it twice in 650 words if that’s okay.</p>

<p>My main concern now is that I might be using it wrong. Basically I used it to create a slightly longer pause between two fragments. Technically if I put a comma instead it would make sense. But I just wanted to create the sense of a longer pause in the reader’s mind if that makes sense.</p>

<p>Edit:</p>

<p>To be more clear, I structured two sentences like this:</p>

<p>First part of a sentence … but second part of a sentence.
For example:
It was beneficial…but it had some disadvantages too.</p>

<p>^ That’s not my actual sentence, I’m currently not on my laptop so I can’t check my essay but that’s basically the structure of what I said.</p>

7

<p>Just use a comma</p>

8

<p>It sounds like you’re a little uncomfortable yourself with how you used the ellipses, so maybe change them to commas and let it sit for a few days. If the ellipses still sound better put them back in and move on.</p>

9

<p>Here are two alternative ways to rewrite this:</p>

<p>It was beneficial, but it had some disadvantages too.
It was beneficial. But it had some disadvantages too.</p>

<p>You might have been taught that it is improper to begin a sentence with a conjunction, but here’s what [url=<a href=“http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/conjunctions.htm]Conjunctions[/url”>http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/conjunctions.htm]Conjunctions[/url</a>] has to say about that (and I completely agree):

And here it does seem very useful,drawing attention to the second sentence and creating that pause/separation you want… I like it that way:</p>

<p>It was beneficial. But it had some disadvantages too.</p>

10

<p>Yeah I see what you’re saying.</p>

<p>I actually started many sentences in my essay with “But” and “And” already since it just sounds right. Guess I should just do that here too. Thank you all for the help!</p>

11

<p>We are having the same issue. I feel an ellipsis is the only way to make the point. Here is our scenario:</p>

<p>Eventually it became so difficult that I wanted to give up completely—on myself … on everything.</p>

<p>AND, is there supposed to be a space in between the ellipsis and words on both ends???</p>

12

<p>Put a space between every dot. If there are 3 dots, a space comes before the first. If there are 4 dots (or 3 dots followed by ! or ?) there is no space before the first dot. There is always a space after the final dot (or ! or ?).</p>

<p>Note. If MS Word or whatever is converting your dots to a single character ellipsis, be sure to change it back.</p>