[Tex/LaTex] How to indicate elision in a quotation

quotingspacingsymbols

How should one typeset an elided passage in a quote?

An example:

\begin{quotation}
some text [...] then some more
\end{quotation}

Elision in a quote is usually indicated by an ellipsis (three dots) in square brackets. I have tried variations on [ \ldots ], [\ldots], \emph{[ \ldots ]} and \emph{[\ldots]}, which all look quite ugly. Since the specific quotation environment typesets the quote in italics, the best so far seems to be \emph{[\,\ldots ]}.

However, this seems a horribly fragile and hacky way to achieve a nice-looking indication that some part of the quote has been left out. Is there a standard way to do this, or should I start experimenting with under-the-hood things like boxes, negative kerning, and \phantom?

(By the way, I'm not sure elision is the right technical term here, I'd welcome a pointer to the correct term.)

Best Answer

How about something like the following?

\newcommand*\elide{\textup{[\,\dots]}}

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] How to modify spacing around quotation environment

The quoting package provides a quoting environment with customizable font, margins, spacing... Just load it with \usepackage{quoting} and use either \begin{quoting}[vskip=0pt] ... \end{quoting} or set it up globally with \quotingsetup{vskip=0pt}:

\documentclass[twocolumn]{scrbook}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}

\usepackage{enumitem}
\setlist{leftmargin=*,parsep=0pt,itemsep=2pt,topsep=2pt,partopsep=0pt}
\setlist[enumerate]{widest=0}

\usepackage{quoting}
\quotingsetup{vskip=0pt}

\newcommand{\sometext}{Some random text. Not using lipsum as I don't need that much text.}

\begin{document}
\sometext
\begin{itemize}
\item One item.
\item Another item.
\end{itemize}
\sometext
\begin{quoting}
\textbf{Note:} \emph{This has no extra white\-space around it.}
\end{quoting}
\sometext
\end{document}

output result

[Tex/LaTex] How to configure/redefine the quotation environment to cite

Here's a solution that redefines the quote environment using NewDocumentEnvironment from the xparse package.

\let\oldquote\quote
\let\endoldquote\endquote

\RenewDocumentEnvironment{quote}{m}{%
    \oldquote
    \itshape
    \setlength{\rightmargin}{\leftmargin}
    {\Large\textbf{``}}
}
{%
    {\Large\textbf{''}}
    \item[]\mbox{}\hfill\cite{#1}\citeauthor{#1}
    \endoldquote
}

It was necessary to use this package because, as noted in Why can't the end code of an environment contain an argument?, we can't use #1 at the end of a regular latex environment.

Note that I have used the original definition of the quote environment and added the line

    \setlength{\rightmargin}{\leftmargin}

which sets the margin (as you noted, the quote environment is defined in terms of a list). I also added

    \item[]\mbox{}\hfill\cite{#1}\citeauthor{#1}

to the end of the environment to add the citation as you wished. You might need to add some code if you're worried about page breaks in between items.

screenshot

% arara: pdflatex
% arara: biber
% arara: pdflatex
% !arara: indent: {overwrite: yes}
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\usepackage{xparse}
\usepackage[backend=biber]{biblatex}
\usepackage[colorlinks=true,linkcolor=blue]{hyperref}
\addbibresource{mybib.bib}

\let\oldquote\quote
\let\endoldquote\endquote

\RenewDocumentEnvironment{quote}{m}{%
    \oldquote
    \itshape
    \setlength{\rightmargin}{\leftmargin}
    {\Large\textbf{``}}
}
{%
    {\Large\textbf{''}}
    \item[]\mbox{}\hfill\cite{#1}\citeauthor{#1}
    \endoldquote
}

\begin{document}
\lipsum[1]
\begin{quote}{kn:gnus}
    \lipsum[1]
    finishing text
\end{quote}

Now is the time.
\nocite{*}

\printbibliography

\end{document}

mybib.bib

@online{kn:gnus,
author= {{David Arnold}},
title= {Writing Scientific Papers in \LaTeX},
url = {http://msemac.redwoods.edu/~darnold/math55/WritingScientificPapers/project_latex.pdf}
}

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] How to modify spacing around quotation environment

[Tex/LaTex] How to configure/redefine the quotation environment to cite

Related Question