Read the passage below (taken from "The Struggle for an Education." Washington, Booker T. 1901. Up From Slavery) Select the pass
age that uses ellipses correctly. One day, while at work in the coal-mine, I happened to overhear two miners talking about a great school for coloured people somewhere in Virginia. This was the first time that I had ever heard anything about any kind of school or college that was more pretentious than that little coloured school in our town.
One day, . . . I happened to overhear two miners talking about a great school for coloured people. . . . This was the first time that I had ever heard anything about any kind of school or college. . . .
One day, I happened to overhear two miners talking about a great school for coloured people. . . This was the first time that I had ever heard anything about any kind of school or college. . . .
One day, . . . I happened to overhear two miners talking about a great school for coloured people. This was the first time that I had ever heard anything about any kind of school or college. . . .
One day, . . . I happened to overhear two miners talking about a great school for coloured people. . . . This was the first time that I had ever heard anything about any kind of school or college.
I believe it would be the second passage because an ellipse is used when a word, phrase or thought is left out but the reader still understands the intended meaning. In choice two, the narrator is speaking of school and making a point that he had never heard of a school for coloured people and restates it at the end that this was the first time he heard of it. It lets the reader imagine what must be going through his mind without stating it in the writing.
