HYPHENS, ELLIPSES, DASHES Ellipses vs. Dashes; Hyphen, Em Dash and En Dash  A.   Ellipsis (…) or Dash (—)? In fiction, An ellipsis (…) is used to show hesitation : “What I meant is…I don’t know how to begin…”  (Also indicates the omission of words in a quoted text.) A dash (—) , also called em dash, is used to show an interruption in speech: “But I—” “But nothing! I don’t want to hear your excuses!” or a sudden break in thought or sentence structure: “Will he—can he—find out the truth?” The dash is used for amplifying or explaining , for setting off information within a sentence, kind of like parentheses or commas can do: “My friends—I mean, my former friends—ganged up on me.” B.   Hyphen vs. En Dash vs. Em Dash: The en dash is longer than the hyphen but shorter than the em dash (the regular dash) A hyphen (-) is used within a word . It separates the parts of a compound word: bare-handed, close-up, die-hard, half-baked, jet-lagged, low-key, never-ending...

A dash is an indication of interruption formed by typing two hyphens on your keyboard. Whether it is a long “em-dash”—or a shorter “en-dash” – is determined by whether you leave a space between the words and the hyphens. If you are using Microsoft Word, the computer should automatically change the hyphens into the dash. A hint: if you put a dash at the end of a sentence followed by quote marks, the computer does not change the hyphens into the dash, so you can “trick” it by typing a letter after the hyphens and hitting the space bar. Then you backspace and delete that extra letter. Some writers these days try to use dashes to indicate pauses, instead of using the ellipsis (three dots…) There are two major reasons to use a dash. 1. Dashes should be used when someone’s dialogue is interrupted, such as: “I told you I was going to—” John waved his hand to stop me. “You always say that, but you never do it.” (The ellipsis would be used if the speaker was trailing off: “I always ...