The em dash—one of the best tools in my copywriter belt

While I’m not exactly a grammarian, there is one bit of punctuation that doesn’t get enough love—the em dash.

When a comma is too pedestrian, a period too abrupt, and a semicolon too ugly, the em dash is always there for me—the best tool in my copywriter belt.

Em dashes are as versatile as they are misunderstood.

I use them to join independent clauses—thus replacing the dreaded semicolon.

They can also take the place of garden variety colons as you can see in the opening sentence of this article.

I often call upon em dashes to replace parentheses, which—unless you’re David Foster Wallace—can get overbearing at times (like a writer whispering in one ear while talking in the other).

Em dashes have a flair for the dramatic. As a writer, I love the wait-for-it pause before the verbal—reveal.

Of course, there are an equal number of ways to misuse them.

“I’ve seen people shove them next to a name after a quote” —Like So

Here, not going with a regular dash or hyphen strikes me as wrong. Almost as wrong as putting a space on either side of one – like so – as if an em dash needed to call any more attention to itself.

Em dashes come by their name typographically. Whoever coined the term decided it was the width of the letter M. Why not W? We will never know.

The point is em dashes are sneaky useful.

While I don’t believe in having a signature style for the clients I work with (every brand deserves to have its own distinct voice), there is one m-sized exception to the rule.

The faithful em dash dash has and always will be—my go-to.