![]() Inappropriate: They acquired several horses at the fair, -a winner, a loser, and a beer-drinking mare.Īppropriate: They acquired several horses at the fair-a winner, a loser, and a beer drinking mare. Don’t allow a comma to substitute for the second dash, and be sure that your sentence would make sense if the part without the dashes were omitted:Įxample: The actors bowed-except for the horse-knowing they blew everyone away!ĭon’t combine dashes with other punctuation marks: If the main sentence resumes, a second dash is needed. If you wish to use dashes effectively here are some guidelines: Tip: When using the em dash in a sentence, you do not place spaces on either side of the punctuation mark, except in some journalistic styles of writing. Think carefully before peppering your papers with them. Em dashes are useful in early drafts to capture thoughts and afterthoughts, but in revising you may need to delete them in favor of punctuation marks that better express your ideas, such as commas (see our handout on Commas for more information). If overused, it creates an impression of haste and carelessness and can diminish cohesion in your paragraphs. If used judiciously it can mark a longer, more dramatic pause and provide more emphasis than a comma can. It can be seen as “surprising” the reader with information. The DashĪn em dash-inserted by typing Control+Alt+Minus between the words it separates-signals an abrupt break in thought. In this handout, we have provided some guidelines for using each punctuation mark. Strive to be clean and clear in your writing. Another word of caution: make sure that you are introducing relevant additional information with your dashes or parentheses and that it is not just added for fluff. Dashes are more common in fiction writing and in more casual texts. A word of caution: although parentheses can be used throughout all writing genres, dashes are rarely used in formal academic research. Dashes interrupt your writing to insert an interjection or pause, while parentheses gently add information to your point. Although sometimes considered interchangeable, each serves a specific purpose in your writing. This explanation is not intended to be exhaustive (for much more, see chapter 6 in CMOS), but I do hope that it helps to frame the different potential of each length of dash.Dashes and parentheses indicate an “aside” to the point you are making in your sentence. In interrupted speech, one or two em dashes may be used: “I wasn’t trying to imply-” “Then just what were you trying to do?” Also, the em dash may serve as a sort of bullet point, as in this to-do list: For example, in a bibliographic list, rather than repeating the same author over and over again, three consecutive em dashes (also known as a 3-em dash) stand in for the author’s name. Its use or misuse for this purpose is a matter of taste, and subject to the effect on the writer’s or reader’s “ear.” Em dashes also substitute for something missing. It allows, in a manner similar to parentheses, an additional thought to be added within a sentence by sort of breaking away from that sentence-as I’ve done here. Now, that is a rather fussy use of the en dash that many people ignore, preferring the hyphen. ![]() In that example, “pre” is connected to the open compound “World War II” and therefore has to do a little extra work (to bridge the space between the two words it modifies-space that cannot be besmirched by hyphens because “World War II” is a proper noun). En dashes are also used to connect a prefix to a proper open compound: for example, pre–World War II. And in fact en dashes specify any kind of range, which is why they properly appear in indexes when a range of pages is cited (e.g., 147–48). The en dash connects things that are related to each other by distance, as in the May–September issue of a magazine it’s not a May-September issue, because June, July, and August are also ostensibly included in this range. The hyphen connects two things that are intimately related, usually words that function together as a single concept or work together as a joint modifier (e.g., tie-in, toll-free call, two-thirds). I frame it this way because the work they do is roughly related to their length (though I don’t think CMOS puts it this way outright). ![]() First of all, there are three lengths of what are all more or less dashes: hyphen (-), en dash (–), and em dash (-). I will try to condense the various bits of information scattered throughout CMOS. What is the difference in usage between an em dash and an en dash?Ī. ![]()
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