When the Christmas presents-crushed and broken-arrived, we were quick to return them. When the Christmas presents, crushed and broken, arrived, we were quick to return them. The em dashes will always add more emphasis to your text than commas will, so be sure to keep this in mind when writing.Įxample of Replacing Commas with Em Dashes: You can use a pair of em dashes in place of a comma to add clarity or to enhance the readability of your document. We have looked at each use of an em dash below. To type an em dash on a Windows computer, you can hold down the “Alt” key and hit 0151 or hold down “Ctrl” + “Alt” + the number pad “-.” To type an em dash on a Mac computer, you can hit “Option” + “Shift” + “Hyphen.” Uses of an Em DashĪs we stated above, the em dash is one of the most versatile punctuation marks that you can use in your writing and can be used in place of commas, parentheses, or colons, depending on their context. This mark is made by typing two hyphens back to back and is as wide as the M key on an old-fashioned typewriter. Having too many em dashes in your document can get confusing, so it is best to limit yourself to no more than two em dashes per sentence. The em dash is one of the most versatile punctuation marks in the English languages and can be used in place of other punctuation marks depending on the context they are used in. We are going to explain exactly what each of these dashes are and the proper way to use them within this post. The dash has two types, the em dash and the en dash. But doing any of these things will make your writing stale and predictable, so treat them as unique hand tools you break out when the power drill/screwdriver won't work elegantly, and you need just the right tool for the job.When you think about punctuation marks, it is not often that your mind wanders to the dash. You can also do this with, say, parenthetical phrases, or by varying average sentence or paragraph length. Used occasionally, this kind of construction can be a useful tool that will add variety to your prose. I'd reserve the em dash for situations where you want to startle the reader - startle them just a little bit. Every writers' habits are different, of course, but getting yourself into a habit of using dashes sparingly may well train you to learn to think in terms of variety. The em dash also can make prose seem disjointed and stuttery, almost as if you put little thought into your writing - putting phrases that should come earlier at the end of a sentence, for example.Įm dashes are easily edited out, and the clumsy sentences rewritten. Overuse of the em dash (or parentheses, or the semicolon - or any punctuation marks) can make your prose a little predictable. There is a distressing tendency for some writers to overuse the em dash, and I often notice this kind of overuse in amateurish fiction where there are also other problems. (The em dash is particularly useful in dialogue.) In fiction, as in other kinds of writing, you'll still want to use the em dash to indicate interruptions, performing a function related to - but subtly different from - parentheses. Overuse of any tool will make your writing inelegant, but using the proper tool at the right time will help you generate pages that are well crafted and precisely assembled. Punctuation marks, like words and paragraph breaks, are tools.
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