College Composition / Unit 8 CMP 0190 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Brackets and Ellipses
Captions available
The idea
Brackets mark a change you make inside a quotation, and an ellipsis, three spaced periods, marks words you left out.
In practice
"The results provide hope to patients [with muscular dystrophy]" adds a clarifying word; an ellipsis drops words from the middle of a quoted sentence.
Where people slip
Neither may change the source's meaning; an omission that reverses the author's point is a misquotation.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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