To embed, copy and paste the code into your website or blog: Appellate advocacy is about persuasion – and the most important avenue for persuading appellate judges is a brief that is clear, concise, and readable. So what does an appellate attorney do when confronted by the need to quote a passage that contains ellipses, citations, or alterations in brackets? One less-than-desirable option is to include all of that extraneous material and a long citation string, making for a hard-to-read quote that is central to your case. But there is another option – and it was just endorsed by Justice Thomas last month.