Prose checks › Ellipses Pro
Prose check: ellipsesOne dot short of a style.
There are three ways to type an ellipsis, and most drafts use at least two of them. Falcontext finds the ellipses that don’t match the rest.
In Falcontext’s Edit tab, Ellipses is one part of Punctuation consistency, with dialogue quotes, curly or straight quotes and dashes. Each part has its own light, and the worst sets the check’s.
The three kinds of ellipses
- … one character, which most editors make for you.
- ... three full stops in a row.
- . . . spaced, as the Chicago Manual of Style has it.
Your book’s kind is the one it uses most. Four dots, at the end of a sentence, stay four.
How Falcontext checks ellipses
Guidelines, not rules. Any of the three is fine. One kind throughout is all it asks.
- Finds
- Ellipses of another kind from the one the book mostly uses.
- Traffic light
- One kind
- 1–3 of another
- 4 or more
- Fix
- Fix makes each odd one your book’s kind of ellipsis, in browser editors and the writing pad.
How many ellipses you use is a different check: punctuation habits.
Ellipses go the way your book mostly goes, one of the style-sheet choices the proofing pass checks, whichever style you follow.
Three dots or one character?
Questions about ellipses.
Which ellipsis should I use in a novel?
Any of the three, as long as it’s one throughout. Many publishers want the spaced Chicago style; many self-published books use the single character.
Can Falcontext fix them?
Yes, with Fix and Fix all in the editors where Fix works: every ellipsis becomes your book’s own kind.
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