How To Use Dashes Instead Of Commas

Parenthetical phrase with commas.

How to use dashes instead of commas. 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. You use them to surround something that seems a bit out of place in the sentence an aside a clarification or a commentary. Commas can also be used to set off parenthetical information but they do. To properly use a dash in an english sentence start by identifying which dash you should use. Let s start with those quiet parentheses.

You could live your whole life and write reams of english and never use it. For instance em dashes can replace parentheses at the end of a sentence or when multiple commas appear in a parenthetical phrase. Place em dashes around non essential information or a list in the middle of a sentence like you would with commas. After a split second of hesitation the second baseman leaped for the ball or rather limped for it. The dashes have a slightly more emphatic feel making the reader focus on this information that is set inside the special marks.

In general you can think of parentheses commas and dashes as a continuum of marks. When a thought is left unfinished however a dash should be used instead. An em dash is made by typing two hyphens. To whom it may concern. For example i never said he began when typing a completed sentence a comma precedes the closing quotation mark and the attribution.

There s never a requirement to use a dash. Use a dash in a sentence to set off parenthetical information and provide emphasis. Em dashes save the day when other punctuation would be awkward. Note that dashes are rather informal and should be used carefully in writing. A dash is a horizontal line that shows a pause or break in meaning or that represents missing words or letters.

Use a longer em dash to join independent clauses with words like and but as or and for. A dash may or may not have a space on either side of it. Using a colon between a verb and its object or complement. So it s not a matter of it ever being correct to use a dash. Dashes are often used informally instead of commas colons and brackets.