How To Use Double Dashes

You create it by holding down option shift the minus key.

How to use double dashes. It would be worth your while to search your help menu to find out what they are. Press ctrl alt plus this minus key to type the em dash into your word document. There are three forms of dashes. In most writing it s used to symbolize an abrupt change of thought and can be used in place of parenthesis. A common example of this is the term award winning in the phrase the award winning scientist the en dash is used to modify the two words to make them into a single descriptor.

I don t know for sure but i ve always been under the impression that double dashes are screenwriters trying to employ the em dash. If you are looking to use a two word phrase as a descriptor or modifier you can use an en dash. Turn on the num lock key by pressing fn numlk together. Most word processors have shortcuts for creating en and em dashes. Dashes are used to separate groups of words not to separate parts of words like a hyphen does.

Locate the minus key on the laptop s numeric keypad. It s longer than a hyphen and is commonly used to indicate a range or a pause. Many writers use a double hyphen in place of an em dash and you might have noticed that your word processor sometimes will automatically turn them into an em dash. If you re copyediting electronically just do a global search and replace to convert all double hyphens to em dashes or vice versa if that s what the production editor wants you can create an em dash in microsoft office software among others by pressing ctrl alt on the number pad. Two em dashes can be used to indicate missing portions of a word whether unknown or intentionally omitted.

A good way to remember the difference between these two dashes is to visualize the en dash as the length of the letter n and the em dash as the length of the letter m. Em en and the double hyphen.