Ellipsis

[belly_ttt]

"Nine out of ten students asked said that they were opposed to the new rule"
Am I right to use ellipsis here?

[BobK]

Fine - it's not compulsory, but the ellipsis is perfectly OK.

b

[beascarpetta]

The Cambridge Grammar for English Language Teachers even high-fives sentence structures like this as a "commendable feature of formal ,written English".

[rewboss]

In fact, I am so used to seeing this construction in academic literature, newspaper reports and so on, that it took me a while to realise that it is, in fact, elliptical.

[belly_ttt]

Hm... I cannot believe my teacher doesn't agree on it on account of one simple reason: She hasn't seen the ellipsis used that way.

[beascarpetta]

Hm... I cannot believe my teacher doesn't agree on it on account of one simple reason: She hasn't seen the ellipsis used that way.

Then by all means tell your teacher that

the Cambridge Grammar for English teachers,p.320,

as well as the Cambridge Advanced Grammar in Use

both address structures like these as

reduced forms of relative clauses and as examples of textual ellipses

vs. situational ellipses such as

A: Could you help me? B: Possibly(meaning: I could possibly help you)

"Until situational ellipsis,which tends to make language more informal,this(i.e. textual ellipsis) is mainly a feature of formal,written English and can seem stilted in informal conversation." (ibid)

Hope this helps.