How To Use Dashes And Parentheses

Use parentheses to enclose supplemental material including in text citations minor digressions and afterthoughts.

How to use dashes and parentheses. This makes your writing easier to understand and lets you add details. The em dash is about as wide as the letter m while the slightly shorter en dash is about as wide as an n. You use them to surround something that seems a bit out of place in the sentence an aside a clarification or a. If you want to include the parenthetical content more subtly use parentheses. Do not leave space before or after a dash.

Do not overuse dashes or use them in place of other punctuation. The following article explains the seven uses of dashes and hyphens in written. Dashes and parentheses perform seven basic and related functions in written english. A pair of em dashes can replace a pair of parentheses. The dash comes in two distinct varieties.

They are also more intrusive. 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. Recall that en dashes are slightly shorter in length than em dashes. 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. The en dash is often used to indicate spans of time or ranges of numbers.

Find out more in a bitesize ks2 english guide. Dashes are considered less formal than parentheses. 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 en dash is often used as a replacement for the word to. The em dash and the en dash.

Using the en dash to indicate spans of time or ranges of numbers. Em dashes in place of parentheses. En dashes may look similar to em dashes but they function in a much different way. If you want to draw attention to the parenthetical content use dashes. Hyphens are shorter than dashes and are used to connect words.