From the course: The 33 Laws of Typography
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26 Connect thoughts, using em dashes
From the course: The 33 Laws of Typography
26 Connect thoughts, using em dashes
- Law 26: Connect Thoughts Using Em Dashes What is an em dash? An em dash is the widest dash character. On a typewriter, and even still on a standard keyboard on your computer, there is no em dash character. So, typists would use double hyphens in order to stand in for an em dash, knowing that the typesetter would go back and replace their double hyphens with an actual em dash. But assuming that you're using a computer to create documents, you should not be using double hyphens ever. There is no need. Double hyphens are not correct, and they make your documents look unprofessional. If you find yourself wanting to use double hyphens, try inserting an em dash instead. And if you see any double hyphens in documents that were created by someone else, replace them with em dashes. So when should you use an em dash? Em dashes can be handy when you don't want a comma, which would end the thought, but you aren't quite sure what punctuation to use instead. Em dashes can replace commas…
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