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Using Dashes in Text

By Judy Vorfeld

Do you often won­der if you’re using dashes prop­erly? Dashes have dis­tinct uses that often seem blurred in today’s society.

Here are some ideas for writ­ers and those involved in busi­ness writing.

A dash usu­ally replaces a comma, semi­colon, colon, or paren­the­ses. When used this way, it cre­ates an EMPHATIC sep­a­ra­tion of words. Since a dash is ver­sa­tile, peo­ple tend to use it to punc­tu­ate almost any break in a sen­tence. Don’t. It’s best used for EFFECT. And experts say we should never type a sin­gle hyphen to rep­re­sent a “dou­ble” dash (em dash).

Author Amy Einsohn says, “The dash is best reserved for spe­cial effects: to pre­pare read­ers for a punch­line or a U-turn.” The Chicago Manual of Style says, “A dash or a pair of dashes is used to denote a sud­den break in thought that causes an abrupt change in sen­tence struc­ture.” Professor Charles Darling sug­gests think­ing of dashes as “super commas.”

There are four kinds of dashes: em, en, two-em, and three-em.

EM DASH

Generally, if you see the word “dash,” the writer means em dash. Most word pro­cess­ing pro­grams give us access to em dashes (the width of a cap­i­tal “m”). If you don’t have soft­ware that has this spe­cial char­ac­ter, type two hyphens with no spaces between the words on either side and the dashes, or do one of the following:

Keyboard stroke: If you use Windows, hold down the Alt key and type 0151 on the keypad.

To make this auto­cor­rect in Word for Windows:

Go to Menu bar / Tools / click AutoCorrect. In the “Replace” box, type two hyphens. In the “With” box, press Alt + 0151 to cre­ate an em-dash, and then click Add. Close.

If you use a Mac and Word, try typ­ing two hyphens. Word should auto­mat­i­cally con­vert them into an em-dash. If not, try this:

Go to Menu bar / Tools / click AutoCorrect. In the “Replace” box, type two hyphens. In the “With” box, press OPTION+SHIFT+- (hyphen) to cre­ate an em-dash, and then click Add. Close.

Regardless of whether you use an “em” dash or two hyphens, don’t leave any space before or after the dash.

EN DASH

Use an “en” dash to con­nect num­bers in a range. It means “up to and includ­ing” when used like this: “During the years 1998 – 1999,” and “…peo­ple aged 55 – 63.”

If you don’t have access to an “en” dash, use a hyphen. If you use Windows, hold down the Alt key and type 0150 on the keypad.

TWO-EM DASH
Used to indi­cate that let­ters are miss­ing from a word. If you don’t have access to this dash, type four con­sec­u­tive hyphens with no spaces between. If let­ters are miss­ing from within a word, leave no space before or after the two-em dash. If the let­ters are miss­ing at the end of a word, leave no space before it, but leave one space after, unless punc­tu­a­tion is required. Examples:

  • Mrs. Birming — - chose to remain anonymous.

  • The diag­no­sis was made by Dr. Boy — -.

Note: You can type a two-em dash by using the key­strokes one after the other with no space between them.

THREE-EM DASH
Used to indi­cate that an entire word has been left out or needs to be pro­vided. If you don’t have the char­ac­ter for the three-em dash, type six con­sec­u­tive hyphens. You can type a three-em dash by using the key­strokes three times with no space between them.

Because this dash rep­re­sents a com­plete word, leave a space before and after unless punc­tu­a­tion is needed.
Three em-dashes are gen­er­ally also used in bib­li­ogra­phies to rep­re­sent an author’s name in sub­se­quent entries, once the author’s full name has been given.

NOTE: These rules aren’t writ­ten on stone. Many doc­u­ments you’ll type do not require using the var­i­ous dashes. But when you’re typ­ing man­u­scripts, print newslet­ters, spe­cial reports, or any­thing that requires good typog­ra­phy, use them as described above. If noth­ing else sticks, make sure you always use two hyphens when you can’t cre­ate an em dash. You’ll find more infor­ma­tion on dashes at:

  1. Writers Block

  2. Guide to Grammar and Writing

References Used:


  • The Chicago Manual of Style

  • The Copyeditor’s Handbook, Amy Einsohn

  • The Gregg Reference Manual

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