Third Time Lacks Charm

May 23, 2005, 12:27 pm

A lot of colleges have had their computer networks breached recently, but Purdue University at West Lafayette’s bad luck with hackers may be unique. When campus officials discovered in May that a campus database had been illegally accessed, it marked the third time in a year that Purdue’s computers had been broken into.

The university warned over 11,000 current and former employees that their Social Security numbers may have been exposed in the most recent attack. (The Indianapolis Star)

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23 Responses to Third Time Lacks Charm

gavin_moodie - December 13, 2011 at 7:42 am

I understand that it is a bit off topic, but am I correct to indicate in block quotes a missing paragraph by inserting 3 asterisks centred on a line?

Carol Saller - December 13, 2011 at 9:10 am

Hmm. I haven’t seen it done that way. Just put dots at the end of
the first paragraph or the beginning of the next (or both).

Nathaniel M. Campbell - December 13, 2011 at 10:36 am

I’ve been given conflicting advice on this, so I thought I’d pipe up for your consideration. You seem to use ellipses just on their own, i.e. “But . . . it was then much too late.” But I was told as an undergraduate that the ellipses should be contained within parentheses, i.e. “But (. . .) it was then much too late.” Thoughts?

v8573254 - December 13, 2011 at 10:46 am

As usual, both charming and informative. In another blog in today’s Chronicle, the writer reports new graduates have no grounding in punctuation. This complaint (frequent) forgets at least two things. First, the intensity and motivation necessary to unravel some punctuating situations, even for experienced writers. Second, writing with some complexity and with use of quotations from other sources generally accompanies maturity and more nuanced understandings of subject. It’s good to remember that the 21-year-old is still young and inexperienced.

Mark Allen - December 13, 2011 at 10:47 am

I can’t not overthink: A period followed by an ellipsis indicates to me a complete sentence followed by an omission; an ellipsis followed by a period indicates an omission within the sentence. Sometimes this matters.

I searched some style guides to back me up, and I’ve yet to find any that agree. The Associated Press and APA guides agree with the Chicago Manual of Style on this. So I might have to stop messing up other people’s copy and reserve this for my personal style sheet. (I did find some surprising variations. The Guardian and National Geographic don’t bother with periods on either side of an ellipsis.)

dank48 - December 13, 2011 at 10:58 am

“It is pointless to overthink this” puts the matter perfectly. My best guess about the periods and commas in US usage is that it’s basically esthetics. UK-style primary quotes are single, so the “logical” placement of commas and periods outside isn’t a big deal. However, with double quotes, the comma or period outside seems ungainly:

Nigel thought it looked ‘ugly’.
Pat thought it looked ‘ugly.’
Buck thought it looked “ugly”.
Georgia thought it looked “ugly.”

Carol Saller - December 13, 2011 at 12:44 pm

Square brackets are more usual [. . .], especially in languages other than English, but they’re not necessary.

amandalindsay - December 13, 2011 at 5:23 pm

I agree with Carol, I was always taught to use brackets to offset ellipses within a quotation in instances when they were not part of the original text or statement. If not within brackets, I may assume they were part of the original text being quoted or indicating an actual pause in the statement rather than an omission.

dank48 - December 13, 2011 at 6:07 pm

“A period followed by an ellipsis indicates to me a complete sentence
followed by an omission; an ellipsis followed by a period indicates an
omission within the sentence.”

“A period followed by an ellipsis indicates to me a complete sentence
followed by an omission; an ellipsis followed by a period indicates an
omission within the sentence. . . .”

“A period followed by an ellipsis indicates to me
. . . an
omission within the sentence.”

I for one don’t understand what you mean by “an ellipsis followed by a period.”

Carol Saller - December 13, 2011 at 6:28 pm

If there’s any ambiguity, the writer should explain, either with an occasional note (“ellipsis in original”) or by including a note on method (“Ellipses not in the original are bracketed”).

dottyeyes - December 13, 2011 at 8:24 pm

Although I don’t use brackets when I alter capitalization for correct syntax at the beginning of a quote, I do use brackets if I change capitalization internally. So I would have marked your example thus:

“Then they all started grumbling at each other. . . . [B]ut of course, it was then much too late.”

Am I incorrect?

beedhamm - December 13, 2011 at 10:33 pm

I need to read Wind in the Willows: “Onion-sauce! Onion-sauce!”

lenoreb - December 13, 2011 at 10:52 pm

This was just delightful–thank you so much!

btw, I thought the quotes with semicolons were quite ungainly.

Carol Saller - December 13, 2011 at 11:59 pm

There’s nothing wrong with having brackets, but I don’t recommend them because they make the quotation harder to read, and the information they convey is usually trivial or irrelevant. I would use them only when they serve a real purpose.

Carol Saller - December 14, 2011 at 12:00 am

Seriously, it’s the most comforting, back-to-the-womb book I know.

Ludo Totem - December 14, 2011 at 9:11 am

So what exactly is Word’s ellipsis character (…) for? Nothing? Languages other than English?

Carol Saller - December 14, 2011 at 9:53 am

Many publishers (e.g., New York Times, Chronicle of Higher Ed) use that character instead of the Chicago-style spaced dots.

dank48 - December 14, 2011 at 1:50 pm

French.

stevegilbert - December 15, 2011 at 11:43 am

“How to use… ellipsis in a quote… making…the person you’re quoting into an ass” Very he**ful!

[Sorry, I couldn't resist.]

AP vs. Chicago - December 20, 2011 at 5:28 pm

You have a friend in The Gregg Reference Manual, 11th edition.

Para 276: If one or more words are omitted at the end of a quoted sentence, use three spaced periods followed by the necessary terminal punctuation for the sentence as a whole.

Para 277: If one or more sentences are omitted between other sentences within a long quotation, use three spaced periods after the terminal punctuation of the preceding sentence.

Makes sense to me!

kweber - December 20, 2011 at 7:28 pm

Though wouldn’t the use of brackets automatically indicate that the elipses were not in the original?

kweber - December 20, 2011 at 7:40 pm

I agree with v8573254, that it does us well to recall that even with experience we may encounter challenges in crafting our writing.

Having read several grammar posts this afternoon, it also occurs to me that the frequent despair over the lack of students’ ability to properly use punctuation/grammar may occasionally reflect variation in instruction, rather than a lack thereof.
Perhaps those who are quick to be offended by writing mistakes ought to become more familiar with the variations offered (such as: Strunk & White and Pullman; UK and US standards; APA vs. MLA vs. other disciplinary standards).

For example, I spend a fair amount of time double checking my usage with the American Anthropological Association style guide–which may not produce writing that follows the recommendations of historians or physicists, etc. Beginning and ending ellipses are not recommended, spelling and punctuation are both meant to be left as they are in the initial quote, though the initial letter of a quote may be changed to upper- or lower-case without brackets.

Itay Eisinger - February 10, 2012 at 12:29 pm

Should I use [...] or …?
I saw that you had already answered to this question, but can you adviced, for good, which is better? Can I use both methods in the same thesis?

2. Also, is that sentence correct:

that ‘like in the Ramallah Lynching [of 2000] the “peace activists” asked for the blood of IDF
soldiers.’

3. Can/should I use page number (as p.) in the text-body, when I translate&quote from newspapers, while at the rest of my thesis [when I quote articles] I use footnotes at the bootom of each page? Also, while quoting newspapers, I use both, giving the page number at the body-text and the general refernce as a footnote. My Prof. approved it. is that ok?

“David of 2010 is a Commando officer, that
had not fired first, and was captured, and [had] been stabbed and beaten, and
was thrown into to the sea, but one who defeats nonetheless”[1] (p.3).

4. My whole text is double-spaced, while quotes are one-line spaced. What should be the space before and after a quote-block?

[1] Dan Margalit, “Erdoğan is a
Warmonger,” Israel Hayom, June 4, 2010.

Thank you so MUCH,
I am not a native speaker. I paid for an editor but she did a lousy job, and I am so desperate!