Write It Well

Readers can get distracted or confused when business writers mix up hyphens and dashes. The following sentences about the new iPad feature a correctly used hyphen and dash:

Any company that wants to make a tablet computer that matches the iPad’s $499 starting price has to endure higher costs. As a result, Apple’s tablet-making competitors have flailed — and failed.

Hyphens (-) are shorter than dashes (—). Hyphens appear most often in two-word phrases that come before a noun and describe it (e.g., “tablet-making competitors”). Think of hyphens as glue that holds two or more words together, uniting their meaning.

Dashes are different from hyphens in two more ways. Dashes are for parts of sentences rather than individual words, and their function is more to separate ideas than to unite them.

Dashes set off a group of words from the rest of a sentence by adding emphasis. A hyphen with spaces around it can’t stand in for a dash. The result looks careless and unpolished, and it can distract readers from your message:

Apple’s tablet-making competitors have flailed - and failed.

When you want to set off a word group, a correctly typed dash adds polish and emphasis to your sentence.

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Write It Well’s book Essential Grammar includes two full, user-friendly chapters on punctuation. We’ve made all the book’s exercises available as a free download here to accompany the e-book, which is now available on Amazon.com!

Do you have an important document but not enough time to clarify your thoughts and double-check your punctuation and grammar? Just use Write It Well’s editing services to make sure your readers follow your ideas and respect your voice.

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Many customers and clients are reluctant to sacrifice significant time on long sentences in Web copy. Here’s a technique to help readers follow your thoughts more quickly.

The following sentence is correctly punctuated, but slightly hard to follow at 41 words long:

And despite the rebuff by Mr. Jobs to the health care executive, Apple ended up adding a number of business-friendly features — like better support for Microsoft Exchange, a common e-mail system inside companies — to a later software update for the iPhone.

Try breaking those flowing lines of text into a bulleted list with one idea per item:

• Mr. Jobs rebuffed the health care executive
• Yet Apple ended up adding a number of business-friendly features to a later software update for the iPhone
• One example was better support for Microsoft Exchange, a common e-mail system inside companies

Reframing these ideas as separate list items sharpens their logic and makes them easy to reassemble as two clear, user-friendly sentences:

Mr. Jobs rebuffed the health care executive, yet Apple ended up adding a number of business-friendly features to a later software update for the iPhone. One example was better support for Microsoft Exchange, a common e-mail system inside companies.

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Write It Well’s book Essential Grammar includes one chapter on sentence structure and two more on punctuation. We’ve made all the book’s exercises available as a free download here to accompany the e-book, which is now available on Amazon.com!

Do you have an important document but not enough time to clarify your thoughts and double-check your punctuation and grammar? Just use Write It Well’s editing services to make sure your readers follow your ideas and respect your voice.

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Have you ever felt drained just looking at an e-mail that was one long, unbroken paragraph of text? A long sentence can have the same intimidating effect. Here’s an example about the short battery life of the iPhone 4S:

For now, Apple isn’t saying anything about the issue – a spokeswoman didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment – in what has become a typical pattern of silence for the company after customers begin complaining about a technical problem with a new iPhone.

The sentence is 42 words long; we recommend that you keep most sentences in business documents under about 25 words. Breaking up the sentence into separate ideas can help you rewrite it:

• For now, Apple isn’t saying anything about the issue
• A spokeswoman didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment
• This has become a typical pattern of silence for the company
• Customers have complained before about a technical problem with a new iPhone

This separation of ideas makes it much easier to create two or more shorter sentences with new transitions between the ideas:

For now, Apple isn’t saying anything about the issue; a spokeswoman didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment. This has become a typical pattern of silence for the company when customers complain about a technical problem with a new iPhone.

Busy readers appreciate having a clear path marked out for them, and these 18- and 22-word sentences are much easier to follow.

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Write It Well’s book Essential Grammar includes a chapter on sentence structure and two more on punctuation. We’ve made all the book’s exercises available as a free download here to accompany the e-book, which is now available on Amazon.com!

Do you have an important document but not enough time to clarify your thoughts and double-check your punctuation and grammar? Just use Write It Well’s editing services to make sure your readers follow your ideas and respect your voice.

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The following sentence about Apple computers very elegantly demonstrates how dashes set off information in a sentence:

How did he take a commodity — to borrow from the novelist Tom Wolfe, the “veal gray” plastic boxes that once weighed so heavily on both our desks and spirits — and turn it into one of the most iconic and desirable objects on the planet?

— business analyst James B. Stewart, “How Steve Jobs Infused Passion into a Commodity,” nytimes.com, October 7, 2011

The core of the sentence amounts to, “How did he take a commodity and turn it into an iconic, desirable object?” The dashes surround and emphasize a quote that explains why that transformation was remarkable.

We’ve written before about the uses of dashes. When you master the basics of grammar and punctuation, you can design your own sentences to deliver the precise meanings you need your readers to grasp.

Studying the basic mechanics of the sentence is one of the most effective ways to craft prose that will inspire your clients and customers.

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Write It Well’s book Essential Grammar includes two chapters on punctuation and another on sentence mechanics. You’ll learn how to write for maximum clarity and impact in all your business documents.

We’ve made all the book’s exercises available as a free download here to accompany the e-book, which is now available on Amazon.com!

Do you have an important document but not enough time to clarify your thoughts and double-check your punctuation and grammar? Just use Write It Well’s editing services to make sure your readers follow your ideas and respect your voice.

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This correctly punctuated sequence of sentences about the iPhone 4S is a perfect illustration of how you can avoid a comma splice:

Apple introduced its long-awaited new iPhone on Tuesday. But it wasn’t an iPhone 5. That will have to wait.

Those last two sentences would be incorrect if they were connected only with a comma:

Apple introduced its long-awaited new iPhone on Tuesday. But it wasn’t an iPhone 5, that will have to wait.

That sentence is a comma splice: two clauses, each of which could stand as an independent sentence, incorrectly joined with a comma.

When you have two clauses that could stand as independent sentences, you’ll always be safe if you use any of these other methods to join them:

A Semicolon:

Apple introduced its long-awaited new iPhone on Tuesday. But it wasn’t an iPhone 5; that will have to wait.

A Comma and a Conjunction:

Apple introduced its long-awaited new iPhone on Tuesday. But it wasn’t an iPhone 5, since that will have to wait.

A Semicolon, Linking Word, and Comma:

Apple introduced its long-awaited new iPhone on Tuesday. It wasn’t an iPhone 5; unfortunately, that will have to wait.

Or, of course, you could just make each independent clause its own sentence, as in the original example.

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Do you have an important document but not enough time to clarify your thoughts and double-check your punctuation and grammar? Just use Write It Well’s editing services to make sure your readers follow your ideas and respect your voice.

Write It Well’s book Essential Grammar includes two chapters on punctuation to help you boost the impact of all your business documents.

We’ve made all the book’s exercises available as a free download here to accompany the e-book, which is now available on Amazon.com!

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Things that aren’t practical on the iPhone due to its small size are natural and almost magical on the iPad.

— Daniel Eran Dilger, “Hands on with Apple’s iPad (with videos and photos),”

Apple Insider, January 27, 2010

Imagine this sentence were longer. Would it still be correct without any commas if it read this way?

Activities like looking at large webpages and reading e-books that aren’t practical on the iPhone due to its small size are natural and almost magical on the iPad.

Yes, it would still be correct. That’s because those highlighted words are crucial to the author’s meaning. The sentence would mean something else without them.

It would be incorrect to use commas in either sentence – e.g., “Activities like reading e-books, that aren’t practical on the iPhone due to its small size, are natural and almost magical on the iPad.”

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For more guidelines on how to use commas correctly and confidently, see our updated book Professional Writing Skills: A Write It Well Guide, which will ship on March 5th!

After months of speculation, Apple launched its tablet, the iPad on Wednesday.  The lightweight device (1.5 pounds) features a luminous touchscreen and a user interface similar to the iPhone. The iPad, which can cost $500 to $830 depending on the model, runs an expanded version of the operating system used in the iPhone.

— Priya Ganapati, “Apple iPad’s Display Is More Like a TV Than a Laptop,”

Wired magazine, January 28, 2010

This quote’s first and last sentences are good illustrations of when you need two commas — not just one — to surround information inside your sentence.

The last sentence would still be true if you left out the prices inside the orange commas, so those two commas are correct. That’s also why the single comma in the first sentence is incorrect.

The sentence would mean the same thing without the product name (as “Apple launched its tablet on Wednesday”). So the product name needs to be set off with commas: “Apple launched its tablet, the iPad, on Wednesday.”

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For more guidelines on how to use commas correctly and confidently, see our updated book Professional Writing Skills: A Write It Well Guide, which will ship on March 5th!