The choice of how to set things off, though I’m hard-pressed to think of an example right now, can create different impression on the reader. Can you describe which does what and why?
The choice of how to set things off (though I’m hard-pressed to think of an example right now) can create a different impression on the reader. Can you describe which does what and why?
The choice of how to set things off—though I’m hard-pressed to think of an example right now—can create a different impression on the reader. Can you describe which does what and why?
If you are talking about their “bracketing” use, commas set off or separate the parenthetical material fairly weakly and unobtrusively, parentheses are stronger, and em-dashes stronger still, creating a noticeable break in the sentence. Em-dashes tend to emphasize the material they contain, whereas parentheses tend to de-emphasize it, but, in general, it is best to use parentheses sparingly, and em-dashes very sparingly. (It is often better to rewrite and reorganize the material as separate sentences, rather than to use either.) But with commas, knock yourself out. Of course, parentheses can also be used to mark whole sentences as asides (as I just did), and both commas and dashes have other uses too.
Personally, I much prefer en-dashes surrounded by spaces to em-dashes (with or without spaces) in this role, but I guess that is between you and your editor.
Parentheses signal that whatever’s in the parentheses is extraneous to the sentence. That’s why (I and my 12th grade English teacher agree) you should usually either make whats in the pathetheses part of the sentence, or remove it.
m dashes are basically the same a a comma in effect when they frame an independent clause but aren’t considered as “correct” stylistically in formal writing. They can be used in place of commas where using so many commas would be confusing. Again, usually the better practice is to reform the complex sentence into two clearly stated thoughts, but not always.
m-dashes – not to be confused with n-dashes – are a form of punctuation, which, in some cases, can stand for commas, as long as what’s contained within is an independent clause.
As a former editor of an academic journal, I agree. I would also add that, IMO, when you have the need to create a parenthetical in a sentence that already contains many commas for whatever reason, it is appropriate to use em-dashes or parentheses in cases where you might not otherwise do so; of course, rewriting the sentence or section is often a better solution.
Parentheses are good for an aside or clarification. The sentence should make sense even if the parenthetical clause is removed. Commas can be used in dialogue, exposition, or narration to indicate a speech pattern, and IMHO should be used more often to organize text. Dashes provide more emphasis for those functions. I don’t care much what the official rules are as long as the sentence can be understood.
Do you want to mimic real-time thinking-out-loud more appropriate to dramatic dialogue?
The choice of how to set things off… though I’m hard-pressed to think of an example right now… can create a different impression on the reader. Can you describe which does what and why?
You can probably relate—most of our work is in collaboration with active and practising academics. This means combining searing precision in a collaborative environment spiked with the occasional hyper-extended ego. Plus, given that the the mix of topics includes somewhat contentious issues that require great care in phrasing (e.g. climate change and gender), no matter how much I rewrite and wrangle I’m often left with diabolically intricate sentences. I’m a heavy comment user to explain changes or phrasing, and was wondering here how my conception holds up to the GQ Reality. moriah: I write like that when I want to mimic James T. Kirk.
Nobody has used ellipses in print since the days of Celine and Walter Winchell. It’s non-standard at best.
The formal rules are as others have described them. In more informal writing, say here at the Dope, I’d recommend a heavier use of parens and dashes, because they provide immediate visual cues that asides are coming. Commas can be hard to unravel.
Whether to use spaces around dashes is almost religious in the warfare that ensues. I’m for them. Again, it’s a better visual cue.
Rhythmdvl, I wrote this and just saw that you posted with more info. But I’m going to say it anyway. You didn’t give us even a clue about the text you’re working on. This a major pet peeve of mine. How can people possibly think anyone can give a good answer if they don’t know the context?
Sorry, unless it’s germane I generally avoid context to avoid tainting the answer. In this case, things are usually extraordinarily formal, but the concepts should transcend that.
Plus, given the number of errors that hide in my posts I find it somewhat embarrassing to admit what I do.
I have a similar plan. I want a tombstone reading “I told you I was sick”, but I’ve left instructions to be cremated and have my ashes scattered over an unsuspecting crowd, ideally Yankees fans or congressmen.
Well, that should settle and over-rule all other considerations. What SWMBO wants, SWMBO gets.
ETA: Assuming I decide to use dashes — like this (em-dash) – or like this (en-dash), is there any rule to determine which is appropriate? I have an available supply of both handy. (I always put spaces around them in any case.)
This really comes down to typography and needs to viewed in the context of medium, page layout, font choice and size, column arrangement, etc.
eta: just make sure you always do it the same way - kind of like the decision of whether to use a comma before the ‘and’ in the last item in a series. At the journal I worked on, we had a set of journal conventions that superseded all other authorities, which included rules about items of this nature (journal conventions > Bluebook > Chicago Manual of Style).
Where rules exist (house styles and the like) I think they usually prescribe em-dashes. However, in many fonts (not so much the Dope’s standard display font) em-dashes can be very long and obtrusive, especially when used with spaces (and, there are good reasons for using spaces, even though some house styles won’t let you). As I said, my own quite strong preference (aesthetically) is for en-dashes with spaces.
Em: — (but in many fonts they are are much longer)
En: – (but in many fonts the en-dash is more like the em-dash above)
Hyphen: -
This is more important than any particular style. None is necessarily better than another, but be consistent. I wrote a lot using the style guide for the American Chemical Society. They have specific guidance on all sorts of vagaries of punctuation and typography. That guidance likely differs from another style guide. For instance, papers published in Science have hyphens to represent chemical bonds (“homolytic C-H bond cleavage”), whereas you’ll see en-dashes in ACS journals (“C–H”, if that renders correctly; on preview I see that it does not.) Neither is right, although I prefer the longer character.
Some guidance is related to making the publication more readable. For example, certain sans-serif fonts are recommended for atom labels in figures. I worked for a guy who insisted on using Times until I brought him a draft he’d printed for me to review. The printer was crappy and you couldn’t tell the difference between H and N because the cross bar didn’t show up. Just looked like I I. In this case the style matters, but often it’s just a matter of consistency.
Edgar Allan Poe may not qualify as a grammar expert — and anyway dashes were, I think, far more common 160 years ago — but he wrote about the dash:
(I may be approaching Alzheimer’s age, but I did recall reading something like this in Poe 25+ years ago, found it within a few minutes in my copy of Poe: Complete Works despite that it was buried in Marginalia. I then Googled to find the text on-line.)
I confess to perhaps overusing the dash in these forums — perhaps in memory of Poe. I usually write " – ", the macro for dash used by nroff and/or LaTeX, but may start switching to the special dash character.
But please PLEASE do not do what many Dopers do-don’t they know what an emdash is?-and use an unspaced hyphen to represent a dash as I’ve done in this sentence.
