#Dash how to#

Em dashes are used in place of commas or parentheses to emphasize or draw attention to parenthetical or amplifying material.

“That is-I suppose it is concerning.” The Em Dash in Action: Attention Must Be Paid “Of course you have a point,” Mabel murmured. “That the bakers fail to recognize the crucial importance of the cheese Danish-”

An em dash can indicate interrupted speech or a speaker’s confusion or hesitation.

Mabel the Cat was delighted with the assortment of pastries the new bakery featured, but Harry the Dog-he felt otherwise.

An em dash can mark an abrupt change or break in the structure of a sentence.

#Dash how to#

How to type one, however, depends on your machine.

This website prefers the latter, its style requiring the closely held em dash in running text. Most newspapers insert a space before and after the dash, and many popular magazines do the same, but most books and journals omit spacing, closing whatever comes before and after the em dash right up next to it. The em dash is sometimes considered a less formal equivalent of the colon and parenthesis, but in truth it’s used in all kinds of writing, including the most formal-the choice of which mark to use is really a matter of personal preference. Like a colon, an em dash introduces a clause that explains or expands upon something that precedes it. Like commas and parentheses, em dashes set off extra information, such as examples, explanatory or descriptive phrases, or supplemental facts. The em dash can function like a comma, a colon, or parenthesis.

It looks like - or sometimes (as when one’s word processing program fails to convert it) - and it’s called the “common dash,” or “em dash.” The two names are well-earned this dash is the most common true dash, and it’s the approximate width of a capital M. There are various punctuation items that can be described as dashes, and we will get to them all, but we’ll begin with the most useful, and most used. They take the reader aside, and then draw that reader to the next bit like a good dance partner in the lead. Among punctuation marks, dashes have a certain panache.