shortening direct quotations?

Rodrigo Pezley: MLA - OMTTING WORDS FROM DIRECT QUOTATION:__If you omit a word or words from a direct quotation, you should indicate the deleted word or words by using ellipsis marks, preceded and followed by a space. __Neither brackets nor parentheses are needed around ellipses UNLESS adding them would clarify your use of ellipses.__You must be sure that the words you remove do NOT alter the basic meaning of the original quote in any way. __You must be sure that the quote, without the missing material, still leaves a grammatically correct sentence.ISSUES:__Although I can't be sure given the absence of context, it appears to me that the material you wish to omit does alter the basic meaning of the original quote. This is a judgement that you must make.__It is unclear from the words that follow your comment "i just need this" that you wish to create a sentence. If you wish to do so, the sentence must be grammatically correct (e.g. use of the lower case "h" to begin the s! entence; punctuation at the end of the sentence).__ You have added a word and a punctuation mark to the quotation. The word is "and"; the punctuation mark is the comma preceding the "and". In your example, the word and punctuation mark precede "friends". In a quotation, you should put brackets around added words and puntuation to indicate that they are not part of the original text.YOUR EXAMPLE:The constraints of Yahoo! Answers do not permit me to show you a formatted example (e.g., margins; indentations; double spaceing between lines). Nevertheless, IF you conclude that omitting the words you wish to omit DOES NOT alter the basic meaning of the original quote; IF you identify the word and punctuation that you have added; and, IF you are creating a sentence, you punctuate it correctly -- including the use of a parenthetical citation and the placement of the closing period. the quotation would read:"[H]is sense of alienation is almost complete - from parents, from frien! ds [, and] from society in general ... " (parenthetical citati! on).For verification and formatted, correctly punctuated examples, PLEASE SEE:http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/03/http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/577/01/http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/577/03/Good luck!...Show more