![]() ![]() "Come help me!" my sister shouted into the telephone. (Notice how you can substitute the em dash with a colon or a period.) Your help has truly been invaluable-you deserve to know that I will always be thankful. (Notice how you can substitute the em dashes with commas or parentheses in this case doing so will change how abrupt the interjection is.) Our friendship-or whatever you wish to call it-has been especially volatile. Em dashes are generally stronger than commas but weaker than colons, parentheses, and periods. Used to set apart a portion of text (e.g., an interjection). (Will we be studying war history or post- history? The en dash helps clarify.) We will be studying post–world war history. Used with compound adjectives when using a hyphen is ambiguous. I'm taking the Atlanta–Chicago flight tonight. Sometimes used to indicate a route between two geographical points (depends on the style manual you follow). Used to separate certain sequences of numbers. I recommend taking a look at CMOS if you want a more comprehensive overview of proper one style of punctuation usage. I recommend sticking to a maximum of one em-dash or pair of em-dashes per paragraph, and no more than a handful per page.I generally follow CMOS, so these guidelines apply mainly to American English users. ![]() Note that em-dashes create emphasis by forcing the reader to pause. To set up text snippets, visit System Preferences > Keyboard > Text. Note that Macs and iOS devices have built-in text expansion. For example, when I type “emd” with aText running, those letters are immediately replaced by an em-dash. Use a text expansion program such as aText or PhraseExpress to create a text snippet that expands into an em-dash. Then, highlight “Em Dash” and click “Keyboard Shortcut.” In my version of Word, you can accomplish this by visiting Insert > Advanced Symbol > Special Characters. In Word or other text-editing programs, create a keyboard shortcut such as Ctrl + Alt + M that inserts an em-dash. In Microsoft Word, type a letter immediately followed by two hyphens and then another letter, as in “a-b.” The two hyphens should automatically expand into an em-dash. Here are three ways to create em-dashes (which are sometimes referred to simply as “dashes”): Sadly, keyboards do not normally include an em-dash key. I read War and Peace this summer - all 1,200 pages of it. Use em-dashes to add an afterthought to a sentence. This year’s 2Ls - many of whom have had their plans disrupted by COVID-19 - are even more concerned about grades than usual. Use em-dashes to set off a phrase that modifies or explains something in the middle of the sentence. (For this purpose, em-dashes are more emphatic than parentheses or commas.)įirst-year law students read judicial opinions as they read most other material - from beginning to end - but experienced lawyers often jump straight to the rule. Use an em-dash to set off and emphasize a parenthetical phrase. En-dashes are used primarily for numeric ranges (e.g., “March 15–20” and “pp. The em-dash ( - ) is particularly useful for this task.Īt the outset, you should learn to recognize the difference between em-dashes (-), en-dashes (–), and hyphens (-). Help the reader absorb information in manageable chunks by using punctuation to break the sentence into parts. When you are writing longer sentences, keep the reader’s short-term memory and mental energy in mind. ![]()
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