Write It Well

It’s easy to learn when and how to type a dash instead of a hyphen.

Hyphens (-) connect words, while dashes (—) connect larger parts of a sentence. This paragraph illustrates the difference:

Twitter, the minimalist-format social network that claims to have 100 million users, has built its reputation around its simplicity. Members can post to the service only in text messages of 140 characters or less. They can include a link to another site, or to a photo or video. They can repost other users’ messages on their own pages. They can send each other equally spartan private messages. That’s about it — or so it seems.

A hyphen is used most often in two-word phrases that come before a noun (such as the phrase “two-word” before the noun “phrases” in this sentence).

A dash dramatically separates one idea from the rest of a sentence, calling attention to the words that follow it. Before “or so it seems” in the quote above, a journalist uses a dash to emphasize that Twitter has more uses than the obvious ones he’s just listed.

In Microsoft Word on a Mac or a PC, you can use the hyphen key to type a dash:

• On a Mac, you can type a dash by holding down the Option key plus the hyphen key
• On a PC, you can type a dash by holding down the CTRL key plus the hyphen key

Add a space both before and after this kind of dash, and your prose can instantly look more polished.

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Write It Well’s book Essential Grammar includes two 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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If you get confused about whether to hyphenate a two-word phrase, try using numbers to help you remember.

Take a look at these correctly hyphenated two-word phrases in orange and the underlined nouns that follow them:

As mobile phones become bodily appendages for people worldwide, they too are emerging as instruments to verify identity. Google introduced its two-step process earlier this year. It sends a six-digit code to an application on a Google user’s cellphone to be entered along with a password.

Here are those same nouns and phrases, rearranged and correctly typed with no hyphens:

The process has two steps, and the code has six digits.

The usual rule is that you hyphenate a two-word phrase when it comes before a noun, and you omit the hyphen when a phrase with two words follows a noun.

If you forget that “before, but not after” rule, try thinking of a two-word phrase that includes a number. You can follow your instincts and avoid the odd-looking and incorrect hyphen in “The process has two-steps.”

In contrast, the correct hyphen in “The two-step process” looks natural to most writers. That’s how numbers can help you remember how to use hyphens correctly.

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Write It Well’s book Essential Grammar includes two 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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Business writers can make an especially polished impression by using hyphens and dashes correctly. This sentence shows advanced uses for both punctuation marks:

A study commissioned by HarperCollins in 2010 found that books bought for three- to seven-year-olds were frequently discovered at a local bookstore — 38 percent of the time.

The dash before “38 percent” is perfect because it precedes some surprising information. The writer skillfully uses this dash to emphasize the news that adults are over five times likelier to buy e-books for themselves than for their kids.

Dashes call attention to the words they set off. (And parentheses downplay the information they contain.)

Click here for Write It Well’s guide to using hyphens correctly. And click here for our guide for typing dashes and hyphens correctly.

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Write It Well’s book Essential Grammar includes two 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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Very few business writers know the basic guidelines for when you do and don’t type a hyphen. Your writing can create an especially careful and polished impression when you grasp these three guidelines:

1. Don’t add a hyphen after most prefixes.
2. Don’t type a hyphen after a word that ends with -ly.
3. Do add a hyphen when most two-word descriptions come before a noun.

First, leave out a hyphen after a prefix in most words – e.g., preapproved or unplanned. But feel free to add a hyphen when the same letter is repeated – e.g., pre-existing or un-newsworthy.

Webster’s dictionary only includes hyphens after prefixes when a word would be unclear without it. (E.g., co-op is a two-syllable noun for a kind of apartment, while coop is a one-syllable noun for a chicken cage).

Second, never add hyphens after words that end with -ly (e.g., it’s incorrect to type the hyphen in “clearly-written report”).

And for other words, do add a hyphen to a two-word description that comes before a noun (“It’s a well-written report“) but leave out the hyphen when the same description follows the noun (“The report is well written”).

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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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Few business writers know a simple technique to decide whether to add a hyphen to a two-word descriptive phrase. The following sentences feature an incorrect hyphen in red and a correct hyphen in green:

You’d be hard-pressed to find any other restaurant cooks afforded such luxury. Cooks rarely eat restaurant-quality food at work.

— “Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse turning 40,” sfgate.com, August 14, 2011

To determine whether you should add a hyphen, locate the noun or pronoun that a two-word or multiword phrase describes.

In the first sentence, the phrase “hard-pressed” describes the pronoun “you.” The hyphen between the two words is incorrect because the descriptive phrase follows the pronoun.

The hyphen in “restaurant-quality” is correct because the two-word phrase comes before the noun it describes: “food.”

Hyphenation is usually as easy as remembering to add the hyphen only when a two-word phrase comes before a noun or pronoun.

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Write It Well’s book Essential Grammar includes two full chapters on correct punctuation, including whether to include hyphens after words that end in -ly.

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 untangle your sentences or double-check your punctuation? Just use Write It Well’s editing services to make sure your readers follow your ideas and respect your voice.

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Careless writing can confuse your readers even when it sounds perfectly clear to you. Correct punctuation can prevent this confusion.

Careless punctuation leaves this article title unclear:

“No Pseudonyms Allowed: Is Google Plus’s Real Name Policy a Good Idea?” Audrey Watters, nytimes.com, July 12, 2011

Adding a hyphen makes the article topic immediately clear: “Google Plus’s Real-Name Policy.” This hyphen is also grammatically necessary.

Without a hyphen, it’s not clear if the article topic is the company’s real policy about names. The hyphen makes it immediately clear that the policy concerns real names as opposed to pseudonyms.

It pays to spend some time and effort on your punctuation: readers will grasp your ideas immediately, and they’ll see you as a effortlessly clear communicator.

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Write It Well’s book Essential Grammar is a thorough review of the punctuation rules you need to project credibility, clear thought, and professionalism through all your writing.

The book includes two user-friendly chapters on punctuation, including hyphenation guidelines that enable you to project an especially polished image as a business writer.

Do you have an important document but not enough time to polish it or boost reader comprehension? Just use Write It Well’s editing services.

We’ll make sure the prose is correct, clear, concise, and engaging so your readers will follow all your ideas easily and respect your voice.

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Correct hyphenation sets business writing apart. Here’s a tour de force example of it from the Wall Street Journal:

There are five dwellings on the property, including a 7,500-square-foot stucco-and-tile Tuscan-style house with three bedrooms.

— Candace Jackson, “Napa Estate Asks $35.8 Million,” wsj.com

These hyphens are correct because the three multiword descriptions all come before the noun house. No hyphen would be needed if you put any of these descriptions after the noun, as in “The house is stucco and tile.”

A hyphen would be necessary for the phrase “three-bedroom house” if it were before the noun. But before nouns, you do leave out hyphens for well-known multiword phrases like ” a tour de force example” or “a real estate listing.”

Using hyphens incorrectly is such a commonplace mistake that most readers won’t notice it. But correct hyphenation adds unmistakable polish to any document.

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Write It Well’s newly updated book Essential Grammar includes further tips on correct hyphenation as well as a thorough review of the fundamental grammar you need to project a credible professional image through your writing.

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“[A] seven-person team of statisticians, machine-learning experts and computer engineers …. was the longtime frontrunner in the contest…. The Netflix contest has been widely followed because its lessons could extend well beyond improving movie picks.”  – Steve Lohr, “Netflix Awards $1 Million Prize and Starts a New Contest,” New York Times, September 21, 2009

Finally…!  Someone who knows how to use a hyphen!  Lohr hyphenates “seven-person ” and “machine-learning” because these two-word phrases come before the nouns they describe – “team” and “experts.” There’d be no hyphen if either two-word phrase came after the noun: “They were experts in machine learning.” 

For more tips on how to use hyphens correctly, see Write It Well’s book Professional Writing Skills: A Self-Paced Training Program.