1. Kadjeski school of magic and wizardry
Welcome to the
Kadjeski school of magic and wizardry

2. What magic will we learn today?
Dashes and Hyphens!

3. Charms and Spells Use dashes to charm your creative writing.
Make persuasion more persuasive.
Fully develop characters.
Play with your audience like the greats do!
Use dashes to enhance your academic writing.
Emphasize what is most important.
Visibly show contrast.
Include important but slightly off-topic information.

4. Before We Get Advanced
Before we use advanced magic (em dashes), we’ll review the ways that you’ve already been using en dashes and hyphens.
Em dash: –
En dash: -
Hyphen: -

5. Conventional Spells
These uses are all conventions, dictated by the traditional rules of standard written English.
Use to easily cast spells that quickly enhance your writing.

6. Conventional Spells: En Dash
Use en dashes to connect words and numbers.
The Meeting is on Thursday, 2:00-4:00 p.m., in the Dobie Room.
Richard Nixon ( ) was the thirty-seventh President of the United States.
We caught the only direct Austin-Santa Fe flight of the day.

7. Conventional Spells: En Dash
Use en dashes to indicate that a period of time is continuing.
Scott Blackwood ( ) has already published two novels.
Use en dashes to connect complicated compound expressions.
We were organizing a college-high school debate team colloquium.
Our senator presented herself as an odd pro-choice – pro-gun candidate.

8. Conventional Spells: Hyphens
Learn common hyphenation patterns.
Prefixes all-, self-, ex-,
Suffix –elect
Most words beginning with:
Well-, ill-, heavy-
Most words beginning with these are not hyphenated.
un-, non-, anti-, pro-, pre-

9. Hyphens: More Common Rules
Numbers
Twenty-nine, one-forty seventh
Double Titles
Secretary-general
ALF-CIO
City-state
Technical Expressions
Uranium-235

10. And Even More Common Rules!
Link prefixes to proper nouns and adjectives
pre-Columbian
anti-American
Prevent Misreading
a chicken coop v. a student co-op
Some compound nouns/verbs
Brother-in-law, hocus-pocus

11. Still More Rules You Know!
Create Compound Phrases
Holier-than-thou
Compounded Adjectives Before a Noun
An English-speaking city

12. The Tricky Rule! How do you handle suspended modifiers?
Anne planned her vacation wardrobe to accommodate cold-, cool-, and wet-weather days.
We couldn’t determine whether the class should be a first- or second-semester course.

13. Advanced Spells: Em Dashes
So where’s the magic then?
The Em Dash is a Vanishing Spell!
Read the following sentence.
At the podium, Coach Bull claimed that he was at a loss for words, and later everybody in the audience understood that he was using the common phrase, “at a loss for words,” to both express how deeply he feels and to make a joke, because he did have more words prepared, and the audience found the joke funny after he spoke for more than an hour after remarking that he did not have many words to say at the podium.

14. Transform Verbose into Pith!
At the podium, Coach Bull claimed that he was at a loss for words – and then he proved it for more than an hour.
How does this sentence work better?
How does the dash work – what does it signify in the sentence above?

15. What Other Charms Do they Have?
In short, Em dashes can be used to replace a comma whenever the phrase or clause separated by the comma(s) is especially important.
Em dashes, in this sense, function as the opposite punctuation to the parentheses.

16. Final Thoughts
Use an Em dash in dialogue only to indicate an abrupt end or an interruption.
Don’t use a hyphen when a dash is required.
Don’t use too many dashes – not everything can be especially important!