<Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This section needs additional citations for verification . Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed . (December 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> <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 stops (...) 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 recommends that an ellipsis be formed by typing three periods, each with a space on both sides (...). Whether or not an ellipsis at the end of a sentence needs a fourth dot to finish the sentence is a matter of debate; for example, Chicago advises it, but the OxfordWords blog has suggested that a full stop is considered to be paradoxical to an ellipsis used to indicate an incomplete thought, so it is omitted . </P> <P> The triple - dot punctuation mark is also called a suspension point, points of ellipsis, periods of ellipsis, or colloquially, "dot - dot - dot". </P>

What are the dots after a sentence called