How To Properly Use Dashes In Writing
Although many people call the hyphen a dash dash refers to another group of horizontal lines in text.
How to properly use dashes in writing. What this handout is about. Em dashes and en dashes vs published on may 31 2019 by amy luo. Em dashes so called because they are at least historically the width of the character m are used for emphasis or interruption. What s the difference between a hyphen and a dash. Use a longer em dash to join independent clauses with words like and but as or and for.
Revised on february 11 2020. Long dashes in writing. So what s the difference. The big daddy of dashes the em dash is generally twice as long again as the en dash. Us publishers and the oxford university press in the uk choose to use closed up em dashes em dashes without any spaces where other uk publishers might use spaced en dashes.
Using the en dash to denote a connection. In practice many people use hyphens where they need to use dashes. The shorter en dash is used to mark ranges. A long dash s primary job is to tell the reader that you ve jumped tracks onto a new though related subject just for a moment. The en dash is approximately the length of the letter n and the em dash the length of the letter m.
After reading the handout you will be better able to decide when to use these forms of punctuation in your own writing. There are three types of dashes in writing used to convey different ideas in an engaging way. When the dash is used in this way it creates a compound adjective. But if you learn how to type dashes correctly it will add a more professional feel to anything you write. To properly use a dash in an english sentence start by identifying which dash you should use.
There are two types of dash. The en dash may also be used to indicate a connection between two words. The sure fire way of creating an em dash is to use alt and 0151 on the numeric keypad. Use an en dash when you need to connect terms that are already hyphenated or when you are using a two word phrase as a modifier. They can be used on their own or in pairs to offset a word or phrase.