ow would you properly show deletion of unnecessary text in a quote?

Question

I assumed you would use dots to show left-out unnecessary text in a quote, such as in>The definition of used oil is "oil ... that is xyz".The deleted portion is non-useful text that would confuse my readers, but I want to show them that the cited passage is a direct quote from regulations except for leaving out some words. Are dots the correct way to do this?

Answer 1

You're (probably) correct, though it depends on how much you're omitting and which of the style manuals you're using. The "..." is called an ellipsis, and is used if you're just omitting part of a sentence. However, if you're using skipping over a sentence (that is to say at least one period) then you should likely make it a four dot ellipses "...." to show that you're cutting out a lot.