The em-dash How-to

Dear Legal Writer:  Spice up your prose with the EM-DASH.

Here’s a full how-to:

🔷 WHAT is it?

An em-dash—which looks like these here—is a punctuation mark that shows a break in a sentence.

All agree that you can use an em-dash,
– in place of a comma,
– in place a colon, or
– as a pair (to replace two commas or parentheses).

The em-dash gets its name from the width it shares with the capital M.

Some people spell em-dash without a hyphen: “em dash.”

(I don’t consider one spelling as more correct than the other.)

🔷 WHY use it?

An em-dash:
– adds emphasis,
– draws attention to its content, and
– adds pizzazz to otherwise lifeless prose.

An em-dash can also improve readability, especially in an otherwise comma-clogged sentence.

🔷 THREE WAYS to use it:

 1️⃣

Use an em-dash to set off words at the start or end of a sentence to emphasize them:

EX:

“Palsgraff—who could ever forget that case?”

“Who could ever forget the most famous tort case—Palsgraff?”

2️⃣

Use an em-dash in the middle or end of a sentence to define, conclude, emphasize, or explain the content that precedes it.

EX:

“The court awarded summary judgment—obviating the need for a trial.”

“Teacher! I brought you an apple—a big, red one—so would you approve my request for a test accommodation?”

3️⃣

Use a pair of em-dashes to set off mid-sentence content that is parenthetical when you want to:

– amplify the content, more than a pair of commas would, but
– not overshadow the content (the way a pair of parentheses would).

EX:

“The court relied on an outdated grammar book—the 1996 edition of “Woe is I,” by Patricia O’Connor—when interpreting the statutory text.”

I will publicize your win at the moot court competition—your grand, first-place prize—yet I’ll be neutral about the tie, as you shared the prize with another contestant, and I’ll downplay your co-winner’s young age (him being an eight-year-old and all).

{There are also some other, uncommon & more technical em-dash uses. See Garner, Guberman, and Google for further reading.}

🔷 TWO CAVEATS:

1/ Don’t use more than 1 em-dash, or 1 pair of em-dashes per sentence; more than that is too much for the reader to keep track of.

2/ Don’t go crazy with em-dashes.

Use them like a spice: a dash here and there is delicious, but don’t drench.

As with any device that adds emphasis, overuse defeats the purpose.

*****

🗳️ Might you start using the em-dash?  Try it out in a comment, if you’d like.

Fondly,

💌 Amanda

#DearLegalWriter

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