Passive vs. Active voice PUNCTUATION (Part II) Grammar Review for Academic Purposes Dashes, hyphens, parentheses & brackets Passive vs. Active voice Taller de inglés científico para publicaciones académicas Mexico City, México August-September 2014

Other punctuation The dash -, -- Parentheses and brackets ( ), [ ]

Dash vs. Hyphen Two types of dashes: n-dash and m-dash The n-dash is used for number ranges or distances. The ‘n’ indicates that the length of the ‘–’ is the width of an ‘n’. e.g. pp. 7-8 People of age 55-80 are more prone to hypertension. The Delhi-Sidney flight was late.

Dash vs. Hyphen 2) The m-dash is used to separate a dependent clause. The m-dash is the width of one ‘m’. e.g. One reason to use m-dashes--and I have more than one reason--is to show you that an m-dash is significantly longer than an n-dash or a mere hyphen.  It is also used for a final part of a sentence that does not really flow with the rest. e.g. Several friends were there—Sarah, Arun and Smila. In MSWord – you type two dashes together and hit return = m-dash

Dash vs. Hyphen A hyphen is used to separate the words in a compound adjective, verb, or adverb. For instance: The T-rex has a movement-based vision. My blog is blogger-powered. John’s idea was pooh-poohed.

Brackets and parentheses more common than brackets include extra, less important information that could be omitted parentheses de-emphasize a clause or sentence while an m-dash emphasizes it e.g. I will meet John (who went to school with me). I will meet John. (We were great buddies.) vs. I will meet John—my best friend.

Brackets Brackets explains something or adds missing material used in math a translation of a word or phrase from an original language e.g. John found Arnisha in the hotel. Diana was with him when she [Arnisha] entered. The future of psionics [see definition] is in doubt.

Nested brackets in parentheses This is not commonly used in formal writing (though sometimes brackets [that is, square brackets] will be used for one or more inner set of parentheses [in other words, secondary phrases can be found within the main parenthetical sentence]).