The Mechanics

Good morning to you all!

Wednesday's my mechanics day and I thought I'd talk about one of my favourite punctuation marks--the em dash (I can't seem to find the em dash symbol on my blog publishing program so '--' will stand in for the em dash here today).

It's more substantial to the eye than an en dash or a hyphen and can certainly pack a punch in the right place.

I use em dashes a lot when I work for high tech companies because I write a lot of abstracts for white papers. The abstract is a lure, hopefully intriguing the reader enough to download the white paper. Em dashes are great in any writing that needs to sound dramatic and engaging.

Poetry writers use the em dash as well to add a longer and more bold pause while moving the reader's eye resolutely on to the next line or idea.

I really like em dashes. It took me a while to get used to em dashes, but once I got the hang of them I found them very liberating.

Why?

Well, they force you to make your point and focus on the 'punchline,' so to speak. I have trained myself to use at least one em dash in every abstract.

You can also use em dashes to enclose a key point. For example, blog writing--my daily exercise--keeps me focused on writing for an audience every day. In this case the em dashes put more focus on the phrase than commas would.

I highly recommend you play with them--you've got everything to gain!