How are bracket ellipsis [...] used in quotations?

I see this type of syntax often, but I do not know how, when or where they should be used.

"It is the case that [...] the inconvenience is altogether imaginary."

Is it okay to use if I need to insert a quotation into an essay, but the quote is long and I want to omit the irrelevant parts? Am I allowed to use the syntax multiple times per quotation ?

Solution 1:

Square brackets are used in quotes to mark information that was not in the original quote. This applies equally to added words and omitted words.

Compare

I wonder... who did that?

and

I wonder [...] who did that?

In the first, the speaker is pondering something; the question is somewhat rhetorical. In the second, the question is literal.

Edit: yes, you can use this multiple times in a quotation. Just be careful not to leave out so much that the quote becomes incomprehensible, or worse, changes meaning.

Solution 2:

The Chicago Manual of Style (16th ed.) discusses square brackets with ellipses in 13.56. It indicates that in some languages (especially French [11.35]), ellipses are used more commonly than in English, and bracketed ellipses are therefore more necessary in such languages. CMS seems to default to non-bracketed ellipses for English-language works, but notes that in a particular work where confusion might result between ellipses or suspension points in a work being quoted repeatedly, and an author's own ellipses, bracketed ellipses may be used, "but only after explaining such a decision in a note, a preface, or elsewhere."