When And How To Use Dashes
The most common types of dashes are the en dash and the em dash.
When and how to use dashes. Dashes are often used to signal an abrupt change in a sentence indicating that the reader should pay close attention to what comes next. Em en and the double hyphen. There are three forms of dashes. Here are some examples. A single dash can emphasize material at the beginning or end of a sentence.
Rather than placing parentheses around a phrase within a statement writers can opt to surround the phrase with an em dash on either end. It is used in the same manner as a parenthetical expression. Alternatively you can use alt with numeric keys 0150. It is commonly used to write a number range like 3 7. 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.
An em dash is used to indicate a break in a sentence or question. Dashes like commas semicolons colons ellipses and parentheses indicate added emphasis an interruption or an abrupt change of thought. When used with numbers en dashes can generally be read as to or through for example if you read the statement pages 182 197 out loud it would sound like pages 182 through 197. In order to use this dash sign you have to press control and key in the numeric keypad. When a range with en dash falls at the.
Dashes are used to separate groups of words not to separate parts of words like a hyphen does. Dashes can be used for emphasis in several ways. It s longer than a hyphen and is commonly used to indicate a range or a pause. It is named as it occupies the space like the letter n. When used to extend a sentence a dash can replace a semicolon a colon or three dots used as a pause for effect.
When used as parentheses dashes are alternatives to brackets or commas. It is usually used as an alternative to another type of punctuation. An en dash is most commonly used to indicate a range of numbers like pages 182 197 in a book or an event happening from 1 p m 5 p m. You are the friend the only friend who offered to help me. Experienced writers know that these marks are not interchangeable.