How To Use Dashes And Parentheses

Em dashes in place of parentheses.

How to use dashes and parentheses. Find out more in a bitesize ks2 english guide. Hyphens are shorter than dashes and are used to connect words. Do not leave space before or after a dash. The following article explains the seven uses of dashes and hyphens in written. Let s start with those quiet parentheses.

Unlike parentheses the dash is quite popular in news writing in all types of writing really. A pair of em dashes can replace a pair of parentheses. Dashes are used as punctuation in sentences. Dashes are considered less formal than parentheses. The en dash is often used as a replacement for the word to.

The em dash is about as wide as the letter m while the slightly shorter en dash is about as wide as an n. If you want to include the parenthetical content more subtly use parentheses. En dashes may look similar to em dashes but they function in a much different way. Use parentheses to enclose supplemental material including in text citations minor digressions and afterthoughts. 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.

Separate appositives introduce emphasizations enclose clarifications enclose asides and additional information introduce explanations introduce an explanation of a preceding series and enclose numbers or letters in a list. You use them to surround something that seems a bit out of place in the sentence an aside a clarification or a. Using parentheses and dashes properly adds structure to your sentences and helps you avoid the absent minded professor effect. Recall that en dashes are slightly shorter in length than em dashes. 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. The en dash is often used to indicate spans of time or ranges of numbers. If you want to draw attention to the parenthetical content use dashes. The em dash and the en dash. Do not overuse dashes or use them in place of other punctuation.