<P> Depending on their context and placement in a sentence, ellipses can indicate an unfinished thought, a leading statement, a slight pause, an echoing voice, or a nervous or awkward silence . Aposiopesis is the use of an ellipsis to trail off into silence--for example: "But I thought he was ..." When placed at the beginning or end of a sentence, the ellipsis can also inspire a feeling of melancholy or longing . </P> <P> The most common form of an ellipsis is a row of three periods or full points (...) or a precomposed triple - dot glyph (...). The usage of the em dash (--) can overlap the usage of the ellipsis, especially in dialogue . Style guides often have their own rules governing the use of ellipses . For example, The Chicago Manual of Style (Chicago style) recommends that an ellipsis be formed by typing three periods, each with a space on both sides (...), while the Associated Press Stylebook (AP style) puts the dots together, but retains a space before and after the group . </P> <P> Whether an ellipsis at the end of a sentence needs a fourth dot to finish the sentence is a matter of debate; Chicago advises it, as does the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA style),, while some other style guides do not; the Merriam - Webster Dictionary and related works treat this style as optional, saying that it "may" be used . More commonly, a normal full stop (period) terminates the sentence, then a separate three - dot ellipsis is used to indicate one or more subsequent elided sentences before continuing a longer quotation . Business Insider magazine suggests this style, and it is also used in many academic journals . Even the Associated Press Stylebook--notably hostile to punctuation that journalists may consider optional and removable to save newsprint column width--favors this approach . It is consistent in intent if not exact form with the agreement among those in favor of a fused four - dot ellipsis that the first of them is a full stop terminating the sentence and the other three are the ellipsis . </P> <P> In her book on the ellipsis, Ellipsis in English Literature: Signs of Omission (Cambridge University Press, 2015), Anne Toner suggests that the first use of the punctuation in the English language dates to a 1588 translation of Terence's Andria, by Maurice Kyffin . In this case, however, the ellipsis consists not of dots but of short dashes . "Subpuncting" of medieval manuscripts also denotes omitted meaning and may be related . </P>

When do you use four periods in an ellipsis
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