The Perfect Punctuation—Celebrating the Em Dash

With all the ways generative AI has turned the content world upside down, the most surprising outrage has arisen because of a previously underused punctuation mark.

I’ve already used that punctuation, twice, because it’s awesome and beautiful. All hail—and, hopefully, not mourn—the mighty em dash!

Alas, people see the em dash in today’s content and think, “AI wrote this.” The outrage from em dash champions is loud and angry as they demand respect for their beloved punctuation.

I’m an em dash zealot and have been since college, so I bring strong opinions to the table on this topic. How did the em dash become a flashpoint in the AI debate? The answer is surprisingly ironic …

The Em Dash—A Functional History

Dashes reach back to at least Shakespeare, when subsequent printings of the Bard’s works added dashes to represent pauses in dialog. Jane Austen, Jonathan Swift, and Emily Dickinson liked the dash for prose and poetry, and over the centuries, it found its way into journalism as well.

The em dash, specifically, is the king of dashes—in typesetting parlance, it’s the length of the letter M, give or take a point. It’s more impactful than an en dash (often used to separate a range of two numbers, which annoys the hyphen-preferring sports journalist in me to no end) and less ungainly than two hyphens together, which is often your only dash option in texts and emails.

The power and allure of the em dash is its versatility. When used effectively, an em dash can:

• Introduce additional information without interrupting the flow of the sentence or requiring another sentence

• Replace parentheses, the contents of which often come across as unimportant simply because they are in parentheses

• Emphasize the effect in a cause-and-effect statement

• Replace a colon, which often can get lost amid other type

• Break up a long sentence, providing much-needed white space without starting a new sentence or paragraph

• Set off a series of items that would otherwise clog up the comma works within the framework of the sentence

• Improve narrative flow

Simply—and yes, I’m biased—the em dash is magical! It makes copy pop and tells the reader, “Hey, this stuff set off by dashes is important.”

AI Catches On—and Hopes Are Dashed

The use of em dashes isn’t something taught much at the grade school or high school level—I would think most teachers are happy when students simply use any basic punctuation and don’t want to confuse them with dashes, semicolons, and ellipses. (My college-age sons, for example, never use em dashes, and when they ask me to edit their essays, I inevitably add some in.)

As a result, you don’t see em dashes too often outside professional, prosaic, or news writing. If you saw a dash in, say, an internal email or Slack message, more than likely, a decent writer is on the other end. That’s not to say not using em dashes is a sign of a bad writer—plenty of good writers are dash-less. The em dash is more of a personal preference, one that, more often than not, is adopted by skilled writers.

Large language models (LLMs) draw from existing sources to learn how to create content. This has backfired spectacularly, with the same cliches, terse constructions, and groaner phrases appearing in AI-generated content, over and over. Nothing is at the intersection of anything! And it’s not this, it’s that—well, often, it’s not that either. Also, you don’t have to ask a question just to answer it in the next paragraph … just to ask another in the paragraph after.

Yes, I have some feelings about AI content. Remember this about LLMs: Their output is often based on what they think users want to see. AI has learned from content that uses “intersection” or “it’s not this; it’s that” and thinks both can be cheerily used ad nauseam. Astute readers—heck, barely awake readers—see these and other overused constructions and think, “This is AI.” And with the ongoing backlash to AI-generated content, those readers instantly come away with the negative perception of the copy and the person, organization, or brand that produced it.

The irony of this process is that LLMs, as they plagiarized the history of human word, discovered the versatility of em dashes and decided, “Hey, users want to see this!” So, dashes started appearing in places and by writers where they hadn’t before. Those same astute, and now annoyed, readers noticed and began screaming “AI!” every time they saw a dash.

Unfortunately, this new disdain for em dashes hurts all of us successful, professional writers and editors who have been using dashes for years to create excellent copy. Our integrity is on the line because AI caught on to something we already proficiently did with our writing.

Practical Advice—You Don’t Need to Ditch the Em Dash!

A vocal community of em dash champions has shouted to the LinkedIn rooftops that we will not go gentle into that dashingly good night (thank you, Dylan Thomas). And nor should we—when used thoughtfully and practically, the em dash can help make for better, more engaging copy. Rage, rage!

Whether you are getting flak for using dashes or want to introduce this practically perfect punctuation into your writing, here are some tips:

Use Dashes Thoughtfully

Em dashes work best when they denote something important that a comma, colon, or conjunction—or a new sentence—just won’t convey as impactfully. See what I did there? Starting a new sentence to get a point across is a semi-extreme measure in the context of my message, so instead, I set that point off with dashes to show its importance. Parentheses wouldn’t have captured the sentiment as effectively, and presenting that option in a new sentence (forgive me for getting way too meta here) would have taken too long when the reader wants to proceed to the next part of the narrative. The dashes delivered immediacy and importance.

With that in mind, don’t spread dashes all over your copy just because you can. Be thoughtful with their use to gain the maximum benefit and impact. This inevitably leads to the next tip:

Don’t Go Overboard

Too many em dashes not only cheapen their use but also can wreak havoc with the white space of the underlying paragraph. Limit their use to either one or two—setting off the text in between as I’m doing here—per paragraph in any audience-facing or formal copy. (You’re OK using more if it’s a casual email or Slack message if your stream of consciousness takes you there.) If you find yourself needing another dash in a paragraph, consider using a colon instead (but don’t overdo that, either).

Pick an Em Dash Style

A true em dash is a wide, continuous single line. On most systems, shift-option-hyphen or control-alt-hyphen will shortcut the elusive punctuation, though in some programs, you may need to manually insert the dash via the symbol function. (Microsoft Word also lets you type in two hyphens after a word, and upon completion of the following word, the hyphens are converted into a dash.) Be sure you are getting an em dash and not the smaller en dash, and don’t settle for one or two hyphens in place of your dash unless it’s a pain in the semicolon to create one—like in texts or email agents.

Next, decide if you want your em dashes to be surrounded by spaces or directly connect word to word. The former looks like this — and the latter I’ve been using this entire article.  Associated Press style, which I cut my teeth on early in my newspaper career, likes spaces, and Chicago Style doesn’t. I’ve grown to prefer no spaces but still find myself spacing on informal copy (e.g., texts, emails).

There’s no wrong answer here; just pick a style and stick with it for all audience-facing content.

Be a Defender

Even if you master the em dash, you may encounter another obstacle to using it: Skeptics who see the punctuation as a sign of AI to be avoided at all costs. Although someone opposed to AI-generated content may be an ally in these trying times, a baby-with-the-bathwater stance overlooks that dashes—unlike so many other things LLMs stink at—can improve copy.

Therefore, you may need to become an em dash champion and defend your beleaguered punctuation. Do this by:

• Thanking the skeptic for their concern: You’re concerned about AI content, and they’re concerned about AI content. That’s something in common you can build on, maybe beyond em dash usage.

• Explain why em dashes aren’t the enemy: Make your case that em dashes improve copy. Show them this article as proof! OK, maybe don’t go that far, but offer a short explanation on why you find dashes so effective.

• Show how you employed your dashes: Provide some reasoning behind a few of your dashes, explaining how they improved the sentence, and even showing alternatives without em dashes—and how those alternatives might be more difficult to digest for the reader and fail to deliver the same impact.

• Show all the other things your copy does better than AI-generated content: Appreciate the skeptic’s concerns and calm their fears by pointing out the LLM suckitudes your copy doesn’t contain (for example, AI copy would never use the word “suckitudes”). Also, confirm that of all the AI content tropes, the em dash is less egregious and less noticed by the average reader.

If your skeptic continues to object, consider taking the dashes out or using fewer. You’ll know best if the em dash is a hill, er, long even plane you want to die on.

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Do em dashes, dangling participles, imperative voice, and other grammar complexities make you too nervous to write or, dangerously, turn to AI for content? The experts at Unretained can help. Contact us to learn how we can drive your content to the next level.