The Writer's Handbook

Using Dashes

In this section, you will find many instructional materials we've developed for our Writing Center teaching.

However, there are limitations to these materials. Assignments vary, and different instructors want different things from student writers. Therefore, the advice here may or may not apply to your writing situation.

Finally, handouts can give only a fraction of the customized guidance that an individual conference with a Writing Center instructor can provide. If you have questions about the information in our handouts, please make an appointment to see a Writing Center instructor.

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Using Dashes

Dashes, when used sparingly and correctly, can be used to make your writing sound more sophisticated.

Indicate sudden changes in tone or thought within a sentence

To emphasize the contradiction between ideas

There is an illness in many foreign services--the people in them are only good at following instructions.*

I am under the impression that she has no instructions at all--and doesn't need any.*

The exuberant--I should say lunatic--quality of his ravings electrified the crowd. *

Set off some sentence elements

To insert parenthetical commentary while emphasizing their importance (Parentheses tend to diminish the importance of what's enclosed in them)

Over a candlelit dinner last month at Spaso House, the ambassadorial residence in Moscow, Robert Strauss and his wife Helen listened as two Senators--Republican Robert C. Smith of New Hampshire and Democrat John Kerry of Massachusetts--agreed that the way to bring American audiences "out of their chairs" these days was simply to say, in Smith's words, "We won the cold war, and we're not going to send one dime in aid to Russia."*

Strauss favors--as does, sotto voce, the Administration--early admission of Russia to the International Monetary Fund.*

Create emphasis

To connect ideas strongly to each other.

To feed, clothe, and find shelter for the needy--these are real achievements.

For further information you may wish to take one of the following free grammar, style, and punctuation workshops offered by the Writing Center.

*Adapted from Time Magazine, 6 April 1992.