I always thought a two dashes (--) was just like a comma--but with more emphasis than just a pause. But I just turned in a rough draft to my teacher yesterday, and I was having her read through it...and she crossed it out a few times, telling me to use a comma instead! Why?
the em dash is not used in academic writing and probably should not be used with teachers at all, as even professional writers disagree with their uses. What was the sentence?
ain-t it a hyphen ? it can connect word parts as well as ideas . it's use is connective . i believe! - i fail . ..... this is a direct relation of two ideas . 'and' could be subbed for the dash , but that particular meaning would not necessarily be the writer's intention . then , a comma would rather disappear to the reader's eye next to the ! . and you don't have to capitalize anything you don't want to . and you can write fo-net-iklee if you pleez . ha ~
The sentence was: Although they might know how have to dress in a manner appropriate to go shopping--they most likely know the store "isn't the beach" (784). Drummingmama: thanks for giving this wonderful piece of punctuation a name! I never knew it was called anything more than just a dash.
It usually signifies an interruption. The most common use is with dialogue. A comma signifies a break, a time when you would take a breath. They're similar, but not interchangable.
The emdash -- which is used to set off a thought in a way similar to parenthetical remarks -- is not the equal of a comma, which is used to pull thoughts together. Remeber that all my background is journalism, so I clash with teachers a lot. So the sentence is: Although they know how to dress in a manner appropriate to go shopping, (that was the sub clause) they most likely know that the store "isn't the beach." (a stand alone clause) if you had two complete thought clauses, a semicolon would have been appropriate.
what I use as grammar is often not the same as MLA style. I use Associated Press style instead. Shorter and, when I was a student journalist, sloppier for formal academic writing. I stay away from education reporting. Have you heard about the elementary music teacher in Bennett, Colorado, who showed the class an opera and now the parents are calling for her to be fired? That was the last school district I covered.
I never knew there were so many different "styles" (actually I think they are called formats ) of writting before starting college...lol No I didn't hear about that teacher. Sounds interesting.
Hiya, hippies! Err, forgive me — please — for coming a little late to this discussion. I’ll bring several things with me to this post. First, a direct answer to Midget’s question (although answered already — in part — by others). Then, a less-direct answer to several additional questions contained in (or inferred by) Midget’s original and subsequent post — because this is what I do. Finally, some plain-and-simple ways to improve everyone’s craft. I may violate this order, and even dilute the “direct answer” a little, for the sake of style (or sloppiness). Hell, I may even give up on order and content for the sake of erudition and self-serving bull-poop. Before anything else, Midget, lose the bold key — or forever lose the opportunity to add emphasis by its more-judicious use. if it was really a “rough draft,” then you should have taken the redirection gratefully and improved your craft (with on-the-fly corrections and with your mentor’s direct involvement). Make sure you know what she wants. Even with your amplification to provide the sentence in question, I didn’t get enough sense of your direction to avoid wanting to rewrite the entire piece. Understand the rules (first) and try to also understand your editor’s sense of style. There is a time (somewhat later in your development as a writer) when you may choose to break some rules and develop a iconoclastic style, but remember that e.e. cummings graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard (in English and Greek) and knew all of the rules before he chose to break a few. I offer that cummings had to be much better at the rules, since he still used punctuation and capitalization for special emphasis. Oh, and cummings was a Guggenheim fellow. Somewhere much earlier, he first learned to punctuate and diagram sentences. I guess I didn’t get around to the “direct answer” at all. But you do have other resources for basic tradecraft. Where rules are concerned — learn the rules (and, in the case of punctuation, it’s more rules than style). By the way, it’s a dash, and I can’t let you go without making sure that you know how to make one. Twenty (plus a little) years ago, it was different. I was writing using a Wang dedicated word processor — pretty racey for a writer, actually, since most Wangs were sitting in front of typists. With the Wang, I had a dash on the keyboard. I quickly converted to the newer technology of the personal computer — before it was even evident which word-processing software was likely to succeed. I learned how to make a dash almost immediately, since I’m a dash-kinda-guy, and ALT-051 was the very first ASCII code I learned. Make sure your NUM LOCK key is active. Press and hold the ALT key. Enter 051 on the numeric keyboard. Release the ALT key. Appreciate your new skill. You can also use the autocorrect feature on your W/P software (in fact, I recommend it if you’re in the archaic habit of using two hyphens instead of a dash — no professional writer does this anymore). Well, at least I kept one promise. You will see two benefits to learning this new skill. First, you will stop “writing your way around” the need to use the dash — adding one more arrow to your quiver. Second, the dash is “way cool,” and its proper use will greatly improve your editor’s and readers’ ability to recognize your use of spatial and punctuational emphasis. Seeya in the neighborhood, —Johnny
