How To Use Dashes And Parentheses

Let s start with those quiet parentheses.

How to use dashes and parentheses. They are also more intrusive. Find out more in a bitesize ks2 english guide. Dashes are used as punctuation in sentences. This makes your writing easier to understand and lets you add details. Dashes are considered less formal than parentheses.

Em dashes in place of parentheses. The following article explains the seven uses of dashes and hyphens in written. Using parentheses and dashes properly adds structure to your sentences and helps you avoid the absent minded professor effect. The em dash is about as wide as the letter m while the slightly shorter en dash is about as wide as an n. Parentheses are the quiet whisper of an aside commas are the conversational voice of a friend walking by your desk and dashes are the yowl of a pirate dashing into a fray.

The dash comes in two distinct varieties. En dashes may look similar to em dashes but they function in a much different way. Dashes parentheses and commas can actually be used interchangeably as a way to mark some of the information in a sentence as not necessary to the main meaning non restrictive information for you grammar wizards. The en dash is often used to indicate spans of time or ranges of numbers. Do not leave space before or after a dash.

Dashes and parentheses perform seven basic and related functions in written english. Hyphens are shorter than dashes and are used to connect words. If you want to draw attention to the parenthetical content use dashes. Unlike parentheses the dash is quite popular in news writing in all types of writing really. Using the en dash to indicate spans of time or ranges of numbers.

The em dash and the en dash. Do not overuse dashes or use them in place of other punctuation. Use parentheses to enclose supplemental material including in text citations minor digressions and afterthoughts. Recall that en dashes are slightly shorter in length than em dashes. A pair of em dashes can replace a pair of parentheses.