How To Use Dashes Grammar

A dash can be used to add emphasis at the beginning middle or end of a sentence.

How to use dashes grammar. When used to extend a sentence a dash can replace a semicolon a colon or three dots used as a pause for effect. To properly use a dash in an english sentence start by identifying which dash you should use. To set off material for emphasis. But long dashes aren t just show offs. A single dash can emphasize material at the beginning or end of a sentence.

Dashes are often used to signal an abrupt change in a sentence indicating that the reader should pay close attention to what comes next. Use a longer em dash to join independent clauses with words like and but as or and for. Both dashes do exactly the same thing. Place em dashes around non essential information or a list in the middle of a sentence like you would with commas. They insert information into a sentence and introduce lists.

An em dash is used to indicate a break in a sentence or question. Short dashes technically en dashes aren t as showy as their wider cousins but they re still useful. The em dash is the largest of the three kinds of dashes. Rather than placing parentheses around a phrase within a statement writers can opt to surround the phrase with an em dash on either end. Em en and the double hyphen.

Those long straight lines draw your eye and hold your attention. Long dashes what grammarians call em dashes are dramatic. Generally speaking the dash does not have a unique role. Us english publications tend to use the longer em dash. It s longer than a hyphen and is commonly used to indicate a range or a pause.

Spacing with punctuation periods commas semicolons colons question marks parentheses and brackets apostrophes hyphens dashes ellipses quotation marks exclamation points slashes. A good way to remember the difference between these two dashes is to visualize the en dash as the length of the letter n and the em dash as the length of the letter m. At emphasis we use the shorter en dash as it s used most extensively in british english and we re based in great britain. It is used in the same manner as a parenthetical expression. Where parentheses indicate that the reader should put less emphasis on the enclosed material dashes indicate that the reader should pay more attention to the material between the dashes.