How To Use Dashes Properly

A hyphen is used for linking words and parts of words together.

How to use dashes properly. The en dash may also be used to indicate a connection between two words. Firstly looking at the hyphen the default dash. Here are two examples of proper dash usage. Where parentheses indicate that the reader should put less emphasis on the enclosed material dashes indicate that the reader should pay more attention to the material between the dashes. Place em dashes around non essential information or a list in the middle of a sentence like you would with commas.

To properly use a dash in an english sentence start by identifying which dash you should use. The em dash can be used to replace parentheses colons and commas. This grammar lesson offers an explanation on the correct use of dashes and gives examples of dashes used in sentences. This is a punctuation lesson on using dashes. Dashes are used to extend a sentence to replace colons semicolons or three dots.

Ways of using dashes correctly. See the following examples. Generally using the em dash makes the writing style more informal as if you were writing to an old friend. Using the en dash to denote a connection. This means en dash is visible always with the preceding number.

Use an en dash when you need to connect terms that are already hyphenated or when you are using a two word phrase as a modifier. The two most common dashes are the em dash and the en dash. If the sentence appears disjointed or does not make sense you may need to revise it instead of using the dashes. Alternatively you can use alt with numeric keys 0150. The en dash is longer than a hyphen but shorter than an em dash and almost exclusively used to indicate ranges of things.

Dashes can be used for emphasis in several ways. Using dashes correctly isn t just an old school technique. Dashes can also be used as parenthesis. In order to use this dash sign you have to press control and key in the numeric keypad. Most often these are ranges of numbers or dates and are used.