How To Use Dashes Correctly

Definitely check what the house style or the preferred style guide has to say about en dashes.

How to use dashes correctly. A word may be too long and run onto the next line so a hyphen is used to link the two parts together. An em dash is used to indicate a break in a sentence or question. Use a longer em dash to join independent clauses with words like and but as or and for. So what s the difference. When used to extend a sentence a dash can replace a semicolon a colon or three dots used as a pause for effect.

It is used in the same manner as a parenthetical expression. After eighty years of dreaming the elderly man realized it was time to finally revisit the land of his youth ireland. Dashes are used to separate groups of words not to separate parts of words like a hyphen does. A hyphen is used for linking words and parts of words together. In the microsoft office suite of applications and many others as well you can create an en dash by pressing ctrl on the number pad.

A dash is a little horizontal line that floats in the middle of a line of text not at the bottom. But if you learn how to type dashes correctly it will add a more professional feel to anything you write. En dashes are also used to connect a prefix with an open compound. Here s a hyphen and here s a dash most of us don t normally type out a dash. What s the difference between a hyphen and a dash.

A single dash can emphasize material at the beginning or end of a sentence. The em dash is the largest of the three kinds of dashes. Em dashes are the width of you guessed it a capital m. When used as parentheses dashes are alternatives to brackets or commas. The reason for using an en dash with such compounds is to send a subtle signal to the reader that the prefix belongs to the entire compound not just the first word of it.

It is usually used as an alternative to another type of punctuation. Create an em dash by typing two hyphens without spaces between the hyphens and no spaces before or after the hyphens. Place em dashes around non essential information or a list in the middle of a sentence like you would with commas. To do a search and or replace the code represents the en dash. Firstly looking at the hyphen the default dash.