Straight up – er, vertical – tip: en dash vs. em dash

Among the confusing typographical marks to use when self-publishing a manuscript is the dash. Turns out there are two of them: the en dash and the em dash.

The en dash is the shorter of the pair. It looks like this: –

You can create it by simply hitting the hyphen key. It generally serves as a hyphen is used to show a span of something, such as time: I’ll need 1-2 hours to drive through downtown Los Angeles.

The em dash is the longer one, looking like — or –. To make one, simply hit Ctrl+Alt+Minus (on the numeric keypad) or the hyphen key twice. It typically shows attribution for a quotation, as in: “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” — Friedrich Nietzsche

Either dash can be used to set off parenthetical statements or to show a break in a sentence. A single space usually appears before and after the en dash, however, while the em dash abuts the words before and after it, as in:

At dawn, sergeant drove us in a Humvee to a distant ridge — 7 miles out — and told us to be back for chow by 0700.

As the sun rose, we sprinted from Lightning Ridge—7 miles out—back to base and our chow hall.

______________

My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past decade, I’ve helped more than 300 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the 7 Minutes a Day… writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.