Dashes - Learning English
Dashes: Dashes are used to set off an additional thought in your sentence. This additional thought doesn't need to be an independent clause or complete thought at all. It can be a list, a clarification, a shift, an amplification--just some clause you wish to tack on to your sentence.
- They decided to meet once again at the beach. But at midnight!
- Correction: They decided to meet once again at the beach--but at midnight!
- At night they walked along the beach, looking up at the stars. Acompletely romantic evening for Sally.
- Correction: At night they walked along the beach, looking up at thestars--a completely romantic evening for Sally.
*Note that a dash is two hyphens: --, not one. MS Word usually combines these two hyphens into one long hyphen automatically, which is fine.
*For print mediums, do not put spaces around dashes. If you do, put spaces around both sides of the dash.
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