Q. I’m a copyeditor, and I’m currently working on a company newsletter that highlights a new section of our internal style guide. I’m quoting two sentences of some existing material for an example, but I don’t want to include the entire second sentence. Right now, I have this: “For example: ‘Our new software makes managing information effortless. The software allows users to . . .’ ” Should there be a period at the end of that quote? Inside the quotation marks or outside? I’ve been staring at it for far too long and have come to no conclusion.
A. No period; just use the ellipsis. This is covered at CMOS 13.55 (“Ellipses at the Ends of Deliberately Incomplete Sentences”).