Tag Archives: writing tips

Let’s Make a Dash for It: The Different Dashes and When to Use Them

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You have probably noticed that there are a few different kinds of dashes, but you may not know what they’re called and when they’re called for. Well, don’t despair—just follow this guide, and soon you’ll be deftly dashing off dashes.

I consulted The Chicago Manual of Style and the MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing and combined their advice to create this list of the most common usages of each dash. Using the AP Stylebook? Follow this asterisk.*

I may have omitted or glossed over a few of the less common usages, so if you think of an example that isn’t covered here, please leave it in the comments.

Hyphen

What it looks like: –

How to type it: Type the button between the 0 and the +/= on your keyboard.

When to use it: The smallest dash, the hyphen, is commonly used to join words.

  • To connect compound words, compound phrases, and some prefixes

Reno doesn’t have world-class casinos like Las Vegas does.
He’s part of the do-anything-as-long-as-it-feels-good generation.
Sophia lived in a co-op during college.

  • To join coequal nouns

Actor-director Rob Reiner had his first onscreen role in ten years in The Wolf of Wall Street.

  • To separate groups of numbers

Call 1-800-555-1212.

  • To spell out a word

Sophia spells her name s-o-p-h-i-a.

  • To break up a long word at the end of a line (n.b., while this is common practice in books, it is rarely used online).

En Dash

What it looks like: –

How to type it: In Microsoft Word, type a space, then a hyphen, then another space. The program will automatically convert the hyphen to an en dash. If you like keyboard shortcuts, use Ctrl + Alt + Hyphen on Windows or Option + Hyphen on a Mac. Or just copy and paste it from this post.

When to use it: The en dash, so named because it’s the width of an n, is usually used to separate numbers.

  • To mean up to and including

We’re almost at the end of the 2013–14 school year.
See pages 45–49 for more details.

  • To mean to

We took the New York–London redeye flight.
The Red Sox won the 2013 World Series by pummeling the Cardinals 6–1 in the sixth game.

  • With an unfinished range of numbers

Dianne Feinstein (1933–) is the oldest member of the Senate.

  • To replace a hyphen in a compound-adjective phrase when the compound is open or consists of two hyphenated phrases.

Is the post–Cold War stability unraveling?
The first-quarter–second-quarter comparison shows steady growth.

Don’t worry too much about this last one. As The Chicago Manual of Style puts it, “This editorial nicety may go unnoticed by the majority of readers; nonetheless, it is intended to signal a more comprehensive link than a hyphen would. It should be used sparingly, and only when a more elegant solution is unavailable.”

Em Dash

What it looks like: —

How to type it: In Microsoft Word, type two hyphens immediately following a word and then start the next word (no spaces). The program will automatically convert the hyphens to an em dash. Or hold down Ctrl + Alt + Minus (on the numeric keyboard) on Windows or Shift + Option + Hyphen on a Mac. Or copy and paste it from above.

When to use it: The em dash, which is the width of an m, is used to create an aside or to separate and draw attention to part of a sentence.

  • Instead of parentheses

And the craziest part of it (and I swear this is true) was that the duck just snuggled up next to the dog and went to sleep.

And the craziest part of it—and I swear this is true—was that the duck just snuggled up next to the dog and went to sleep.

  • Instead of a comma

People at the party were already dancing on the table, and it wasn’t even ten o’clock.

People at the party were already dancing on the table—and it wasn’t even ten o’clock.

  • Instead of a colon

You only ever think about one thing: money.

You only ever think about one thing—money.

  • To introduce a pronoun that summarizes a preceding noun or series of nouns

God, country, family—these were the things he valued most.

  • To show a break in thought or dialogue

“Are you—wait a minute—you’re saying that you know who the murderer was?”

  • In front of explanatory expressions such as “that is” or “namely” or “for example.”

I keep my apartment clean—that is, when I have the time.

If you’re using an email service or a program that doesn’t easily allow special characters, use two hyphens instead of an em dash:

Latest update about the merger–it was just approved by the board.

*Writing for a newspaper? Good news! You only need one kind of dash. The hyphen—which the AP Stylebook simply calls a dash—is used for everything.

Instead of an en dash, just use one dash, no spaces:

We’re almost at the end of the 2013-14 school year.

Instead of an em dash, insert a space, a dash, and another space:

And the craziest part of it – and I swear this is true – was that the duck just snuggled up next to the dog and went to sleep.

If you use AP style regularly, you might want to turn of autocorrect for dashes, or Word will automatically turn the Space-Dash-Space combo into an en dash.

I hope this post helps you understand the rules about dashes. Have a question about using a dash in a particular sentence? Leave it in the comments or —I’ll be happy to offer advice.

Let’s Make a Dash for It: The Different Dashes and When to Use Them

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You have probably noticed that there are a few different kinds of dashes, but you may not know what they’re called and when they’re called for. Well, don’t despair—just follow this guide, and soon you’ll be deftly dashing off dashes.

I consulted The Chicago Manual of Style and the MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing and combined their advice to create this list of the most common usages of each dash. Using the AP Stylebook? Follow this asterisk.*

I may have omitted or glossed over a few of the less common usages, so if you think of an example that isn’t covered here, please leave it in the comments.

Hyphen

What it looks like: –

How to type it: Type the button between the 0 and the +/= on your keyboard.

When to use it: The smallest dash, the hyphen, is commonly used to join words.

  • To connect compound words, compound phrases, and some prefixes

Reno doesn’t have world-class casinos like Las Vegas does.
He’s part of the do-anything-as-long-as-it-feels-good generation.
Sophia lived in a co-op during college.

  • To join coequal nouns

Actor-director Rob Reiner had his first onscreen role in ten years in The Wolf of Wall Street.

  • To separate groups of numbers

Call 1-800-555-1212.

  • To spell out a word

Sophia spells her name s-o-p-h-i-a.

  • To break up a long word at the end of a line (n.b., while this is common practice in books, it is rarely used online).

En Dash

What it looks like: –

How to type it: In Microsoft Word, type a space, then a hyphen, then another space. The program will automatically convert the hyphen to an en dash. If you like keyboard shortcuts, use Ctrl + Alt + Hyphen on Windows or Option + Hyphen on a Mac. Or just copy and paste it from this post.

When to use it: The en dash, so named because it’s the width of an n, is usually used to separate numbers.

  • To mean up to and including

We’re almost at the end of the 2013–14 school year.
See pages 45–49 for more details.

  • To mean to

We took the New York–London redeye flight.
The Red Sox won the 2013 World Series by pummeling the Cardinals 6–1 in the sixth game.

  • With an unfinished range of numbers

Dianne Feinstein (1933–) is the oldest member of the Senate.

  • To replace a hyphen in a compound-adjective phrase when the compound is open or consists of two hyphenated phrases.

Is the post–Cold War stability unraveling?
The first-quarter–second-quarter comparison shows steady growth.

Don’t worry too much about this last one. As The Chicago Manual of Style puts it, “This editorial nicety may go unnoticed by the majority of readers; nonetheless, it is intended to signal a more comprehensive link than a hyphen would. It should be used sparingly, and only when a more elegant solution is unavailable.”

Em Dash

What it looks like: —

How to type it: In Microsoft Word, type two hyphens immediately following a word and then start the next word (no spaces). The program will automatically convert the hyphens to an em dash. Or hold down Ctrl + Alt + Minus (on the numeric keyboard) on Windows or Shift + Option + Hyphen on a Mac. Or copy and paste it from above.

When to use it: The em dash, which is the width of an m, is used to create an aside or to separate and draw attention to part of a sentence.

  • Instead of parentheses

And the craziest part of it (and I swear this is true) was that the duck just snuggled up next to the dog and went to sleep.

And the craziest part of it—and I swear this is true—was that the duck just snuggled up next to the dog and went to sleep.

  • Instead of a comma

People at the party were already dancing on the table, and it wasn’t even ten o’clock.

People at the party were already dancing on the table—and it wasn’t even ten o’clock.

  • Instead of a colon

You only ever think about one thing: money.

You only ever think about one thing—money.

  • To introduce a pronoun that summarizes a preceding noun or series of nouns

God, country, family—these were the things he valued most.

  • To show a break in thought or dialogue

“Are you—wait a minute—you’re saying that you know who the murderer was?”

  • In front of explanatory expressions such as “that is” or “namely” or “for example.”

I keep my apartment clean—that is, when I have the time.

If you’re using an email service or a program that doesn’t easily allow special characters, use two hyphens instead of an em dash:

Latest update about the merger–it was just approved by the board.

*Writing for a newspaper? Good news! You only need one kind of dash. The hyphen—which the AP Stylebook simply calls a dash—is used for everything.

Instead of an en dash, just use one dash, no spaces:

We’re almost at the end of the 2013-14 school year.

Instead of an em dash, insert a space, a dash, and another space:

And the craziest part of it – and I swear this is true – was that the duck just snuggled up next to the dog and went to sleep.

If you use AP style regularly, you might want to turn of autocorrect for dashes, or Word will automatically turn the Space-Dash-Space combo into an en dash.

I hope this post helps you understand the rules about dashes. Have a question about using a dash in a particular sentence? Leave it in the comments or —I’ll be happy to offer advice.

How Should You Begin a Business Email?

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Expert advice on getting your email off to a good start from the guys who wrote the book on email etiquette

Recently, I’ve been spending probably too much time considering email salutations. Back when letters were the dominant way of corresponding, the salutation was fairly straightforward. For a formal letter, the convention was to start with “Dear” and address the recipient by last name, followed by a colon.

Dear Mr. Smith:

For an informal letter, the convention was to use the person’s first name, followed by a comma.

Dear Jacob,

But email salutations, if used at all, tend to be much less formal. I find that most people start business emails with something like,

Hello Jacob,

or

Hi Jacob,

These greetings are friendly, but slightly ungrammatical. When addressing someone directly, a comma should go between the greeting and the person’s name.

Hello, Jacob,

I experimented with starting emails this way, but I thought it looked weird to have two commas. Not incorrect, just weird. Then I tried using a colon.

Hi, Jacob:

I liked this better, but I’d never seen anyone start an email this way. Unsure of what to do, I thought I’d better get some expert advice.

David Shipley and Will Schwalbe, authors of , favor starting a new email relationship the same way you would if you were writing a letter: formally.

“Email is a more urgent form of communication, and we have many more emails to answer every day than letters,” note the authors. “But it strikes us as rude to bark out someone’s name … even in an email, especially if you don’t really know your correspondent.”

But what if the person you’re emailing with is less formal? If you get an email that starts with “Hey, Bro,” and you respond with “Dear Mr. Smith,” the recipient may feel reprimanded or even insulted.

I asked Will Schwalbe what he thought about an imbalance in formality and grammaticalness. Is it better to mirror the person who’s writing to you, even if the grammar is off, or to be more formal but correct?

“You can never go wrong STARTING with ‘Dear Mr.’ or ‘Dear Ms.’ with someone you don’t know and with whom you’ve never corresponded,” he replied. “But if they write back and sign with their first name only, then go to ‘Dear FIRST NAME’ if they addressed you ‘Dear YOUR LAST NAME.’ If they started ‘Hi Will’ or ‘Hi, Will’ or ‘Hey Will’ or any variation, though, in their reply, switch to mirroring them—it’s always safe and cordial.”

Since receiving this advice, I’ve adopted a three-category approach to sending emails.

1. Starting new relationships formally

Dear Mr. Smith,

2. Beginning a new email thread with an acquaintance or colleague less formally

Dear Jacob,

3. Mirroring the opening line of incoming emails

Jake-
Hi Jacob,
[No salutation]

Do you have a preferred email salutation? Do you follow the lead of whomever you’re corresponding with? Share your strategies below.

Are You “Utilizing” Useless Buzzwords?

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Yes, my writing skills are stronger than my PowerPoint drawing skills. But you can tell it’s a bee, right? Right.

“Avoid fancy words.” This command from is excellent writing advice whether you’re publishing a novel or sending an email. They admonish, “Do not be tempted by a twenty-dollar word when there is a ten-center handy, ready and able.”

But somehow we all end up choosing longer, showier words to say something that could be said simply—especially in business writing. Here are just a few of the worst offenders:

Buzzwords Better Words
actionable (adj.) useful
cutting-edge (adj.) advanced
implement (v.) do
incentivize (v.) encourage
innovative (adj.) new
facilitate (v.) ease
groundbreaking (adj.) fresh
monetize (v.) profit from
paradigm (n.) model, pattern
solutioneer (n.) problem-solver
solutioneer (v.) solve
synergy (n.) teamwork
takeaway (n.) lesson
utilize (v.) use

Open one of your business documents and do a search for each of these words. Are you using buzzwords without noticing? Believe me; it’s easy to do.

Now try replacing your buzzwords with the stronger words in the right-hand column. You’ll be pleased with how much simpler and snappier your writing becomes.

Buzzwords will never go away entirely. But the less you use them, the better your business communication will be. So whenever you start reaching for one of these words, remember this post, and repeat the mantra: “Avoid fancy words.”

5 Surprising Places You Need a Comma

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The comma is one of the most misused punctuation marks, but—unlike its dreaded cousin the semicolon—it’s absolutely necessary to everyday writing. Since there’s no getting around it, you should probably learn to use commas correctly.

But there are so many rules about comma use that they’re difficult to remember. My go-to grammar guide devotes nineteen pages to commas. Who apart from hardcore grammar nerds has time to learn this stuff?

The good news is that you’re already using commas correctly most of the time. The old rule of thumb is to insert a comma everywhere you naturally pause when speaking. It’s not a perfect way to decide whether to insert a comma, but it will help you get it right most of the time.

There are some places you need a comma that you probably won’t guess if you’re doing it by ear, though. Don’t forget to put a comma in these five places:

1. After a location or date that contains a comma. Most people are comfortable writing that the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, 1776. And you know to say that the capital of the US is Washington, DC.

But if it falls in the middle of a sentence, you need to insert a comma at the end of the date or location.

On July 4, 1776, the Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence.
Washington, DC, is the capital of the US.

2. After someone’s title. As with the error with dates and locations, many writers leave off the second comma after a person’s title. If the title follows the name, it needs to be set off by a pair of commas.

Stephen T. Colbert, DFA, holds an honorary degree from Knox College.
Stephen W. Hawking, CH, CBE, FRS, FRSA, holds four honorary titles.

3. Introducing a direct quotation. If you set up a direct quotation with a verb, you need a comma before the quotation starts.

J.M. Tyree observes, “The Death Star clearly has a garbage disposal problem.”
Jack Handy points out, “If you ever reach total enlightenment while drinking beer, I bet it makes beer shoot out your nose.”

4. Continuing from a direct quotation. If your sentence keeps going after the quotation ends, put a comma at the end of the quotation (inside the quotation marks).

“The Death Star clearly has a garbage disposal problem,” observes J.M. Tyree.
“If you ever reach total enlightenment while drinking beer, I bet it makes beer shoot out your nose,” points out Jack Handy.

But note: If the quotation ends with a question mark or an exclamation mark, leave out the comma.

“Holey rusted metal, Batman!” exclaims Chris O’Donnell’s Robin in one of the worst puns in a script full of them.
“How can a squirrel look cheap?” asks Michael Ian Black rhetorically.

5. After e.g. and i.e. When you use these abbreviations, make them lowercase with periods. And then insert a comma.

My favorite wild animals are the dangerous ones (e.g., polar bears, great white sharks, and porcupines).
I’ve learned a lot from the Muppets (i.e., it’s not easy being green).

Want to learn more about comma use? Don’t miss these follow-up posts:

3 Surprising Places You Don’t Need a Comma

3 Places You Can Use a Comma, or Not

Let’s vs. Lets

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Since the name of this blog is Let’s Just Be Clear, I figured I should start by highlighting a commonly confused pair of words: let’s and lets.

Let’s is a contraction of let us, an imperative phrase that people use to make or respond to suggestions. The apostrophe is there to indicate that some characters have been omitted (in this case, the space and the u).

Let’s go to the movies.
Let’s pretend we’re kangaroos.
Let’s eat breakfast food for dinner.

Lets is a verb that usually means allows or permits.

He lets his dog sit on the couch.
Jacob works hard all week, but on the weekends he lets it all hang out.
The judge lets criminals off easy.

I have a few tricks for figuring out whether to use let’s or lets. The first thing to check is where the word appears in the sentence. Let’s usually starts a sentence, and lets usually comes later, as in the examples above. This is not a foolproof test, though; there are exceptions both ways:

Don’t let’s get ahead of ourselves.
Lets his lawn grow for months without cutting it, does he? That’s not very neighborly.

Another test to try is to plug in let us and see if it works. I like to imagine it in my snobbiest accent:

✓ Let us adjourn for the day.
✓ Let us imagine we could start all over again.
X My roommate just let us the dishes pile up.

You can also try substituting allows [… to]:

✓ Some people handle rejection well, but Sophia allows it to get to her.
✓ Our boss allows us to leave early on most Fridays.
X “Should we get started?” “Yes, allows to.”

Whenever you are unsure of whether to use let’s or lets, try these tests, and you’ll probably quickly find the correct spelling.

Knowing when to throw in an apostrophe and when to leave it out is hard for many people, and I’ll address the broader issue and other examples in future blogs.

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