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. Here are some examples. Experienced writers know that these marks are not interchangeable. When used as parentheses dashes are alternatives to brackets or commas. The em dash is the largest of the three kinds of dashes. When used to extend a sentence a dash can replace a semicolon a colon or three dots used as a pause for effect.
En dashes are also used to represent a conflict connection or direction between two words or compounds. A dash can be used to add emphasis at the beginning middle or end of a sentence. In order to use this dash sign you have to press control and key in the numeric keypad. 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. Em en and the double hyphen.
It is used in the same manner as a parenthetical expression. Alternatively you can use alt with numeric keys 0150. A single dash can emphasize material at the beginning or end of a sentence. It is named as it occupies the space like the letter n. Dashes like commas semicolons colons ellipses and parentheses indicate added emphasis an interruption or an abrupt change of thought.
Examples include conflicting sides of an argument democrat republican debate connecting a prefix or suffix to an unhyphenated compound post civil war new york based and directional references los angeles san diego bus east west highway. After eighty years of dreaming the elderly man realized it was time to finally revisit the land of his youth ireland. There are three forms of dashes. It is commonly used to write a number range like 3 7. Dashes can be used for emphasis in several ways.
Note how dashes subtly change the tone of the following sentences. Dashes are used to separate groups of words not to separate parts of words like a hyphen does. Dashes are often used to signal an abrupt change in a sentence indicating that the reader should pay close attention to what comes next. An em dash is used to indicate a break in a sentence or question. 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.