How To Use Long Dashes

When a comma or colon isn t enough or you want to avoid using parentheses the em dash may be the punctuation mark for you.

How to use long dashes. A dash is a little horizontal line that floats in the middle of a line of text not at the bottom. Using a colon between a verb and its object or complement. What is an em dash and when should you use it. A long dash s primary job is to tell the reader that you ve jumped tracks onto a new though related subject just for a moment. To whom it may concern.

A colon can be used immediately after the greeting in a formal letter less formal letters tend to use a comma in this location. So is the em dash more often called the long dash or sometimes just the dash. The hyphen the em dash and the en dash are the straight arrows among punctuation marks an otherwise fairly curvaceous lot. Em dash other names. Dashes are often used to signal an abrupt change in a sentence.

An em dash also called a long dash or thick dash is approximately the width of the letter m which is where it earns its name. Conversely use a shorter en dash to indicate a range of numbers like 10 15. To properly use a dash in an english sentence start by identifying which dash you should use. Em dash shortcut windows ctrl alt minus on numeric keypad em dash shortcut mac command m. Long dashes in writing.

The term em dash comes from the field of typography an em is a width equivalent to the height of a given font. After we buy toenail clippers the dinosaur in that exhibit could use a trim you know we ll stop at the doughnut shop. Thousands of children like the girl in this photograph have been left homeless. Dashes are used to separate groups of words not to separate parts of words like a hyphen does. Here are some examples.

Typically you shouldn t include a space before or after the em dash. In pairs to mark off information or ideas that are not essential to an understanding of the rest of the sentence. The long dash is the widest of the three horizontal marks that may be used in the middle of a sentence. How to use an em dash an em dash or long dash is used. It is wider than an en dash or a hyphen.