Mystery Punctuation

Today's topic: Mystery Punctuation

Let's face it--they're confusing.  Those exotic punctuation marks, like dashes, hyphens, brackets, and ellipses.  When should we use them?  What are they for?  What on earth is the difference between a dash and a hyphen?  Let's tackle these confounding punctuation marks one by one.

#1: Ellipses.  Ellipses (... or ....) let the reader know that you've left out some text.  What you may not know is that there are two different types of ellipses--the three dot and the four dot.  Use three dots when you're omitting text from the middle of a sentence.  Example:

Original sentence: She finished her paper, with a great deal of tooth-grinding and frustration, before midnight.
Your quote: She finished her paper...before midnight.

Use four dots when you're omitting text in two or more sentences.  The first dot is the period at the end of the first sentence.  This indicates to the reader that the omitted text includes the end of one sentence and the start of a new one.  Example:

Original sentence: She didn't like to bring her boyfriends home to meet her parents.  To her eternal embarrassment, they always grilled the poor guy about everything from his grades to his driving history.
Your quote:  She didn't like to bring her boyfriends home to meet her parents...they always grilled the poor guy about everything from his grades to his driving history.

As the APA Style Blog points out, when using four dot ellipses, some people like to capitalize the first word after the dots.  This is fine as long as what follows the ellipses is an independent clause (complete sentence), but personally I don't see the point.  I suppose it's a style choice.  Example:  "She didn't like to bring her boyfriends home to meet her parents...They always grilled the poor guy about everything from his grades to his driving history."

These are the basics for using ellipses.  For a few additional details (using ellipses with other punctuation, like semicolons), see this post from the APA Style Blog: http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2011/04/ellipseswhen-and-how.html

#2: Dashes.  You're going to hate me for this, but please don't shoot the messenger when I tell you that there are actually two kinds of dashes, en dashes and em dashes.  Insanely complicated?  Perhaps.  But I don't make the rules. 

According to the 6th edition APA handbook (and many other style guides), an en dash should be used for (examples borrowed from the APA Style Blog:http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2010/09/computer-editing-tip-en-dashes.html):

• items of equal weight (e.g., test-retest, male-female, the Chicago-London flight),
• page ranges (e.g., in references, "...Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, 718-729."), and
• other types of ranges (e.g., 16-30 kHz).

As required by Murphy's Law, most keyboards do not have an en dash key (en dashes are slightly longer than hyphens).  The APA handbook says you can just use a single hyphen instead, but if you are a perfectionist and want to use a proper en dash, there is a way to create one.  Just click on the link above (the APA Style Blog entry about en dashes) to learn the trick.  For simplicity's sake, I've just used the hyphen key here.

Em dashes are longer than en dashes.  Like the en dash, the em dash is mysteriously missing from most modern keyboards.  APA allows the use of two hyphens to create an em dash, but you perfectionists can click here if you want to learn how to create a "real" em dash: http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2010/09/computer-editing-tip-em-dashes.html

Em dashes are used, in the words of the 6th edition APA handbook, to "set off an element added to amplify or to digress from the main clause."  In other words, use the em dash to set off a bit of text in order to draw the reader's attention to it.  Examples:

She went to check on Mr. Simpson--his white count was worrying her--and then headed to the break room.

No one ever gives me honest feedback on my papers--except you.

Note that in the second sentence, you could eliminate the em dashes and write "No one but you ever gives me honest feedback on my papers."  The author would choose an em dash if s/he wanted to emphasize the text that follows.  The sentence is a little more complimentary to the person addressed, a little more emphatic, with the em dash. Be careful not to overuse em dashes, though.  They can add emphasis and grab the reader's attention, but they can also be distracting, and they can sometimes be a bit too informal for scholarly writing.

#3: Hyphens.  Use hyphens in the following circumstances (list and starred examples borrowed from the Purdue OWL):

• To join two or more words which combine to form an adjective, when the two-word adjective comes before a noun.

• ball-peen hammer
• caramel-coated chocolates (yum)
• four-lane highway

• Note that when this kind of word combination comes AFTER a noun, the words should not be hyphenated. Example: The chocolates were caramel coated.

• To create compound numbers

• I was twenty-eight when I got my graduate degree.
• My brother will be forty-five next week.

• With prefixes like "ex," "self," and "all," and suffix "elect"

• ex-wife
• self-possessed
• all-encompassing
• president-elect

• Between a prefix and a capitalized word (as in anti-American*)
• With figures or letters (mid-1960s, T-shirt*)
• To avoid confusion or an awkward combination of letters

• re-sign a contract (vs. resign from one's employment)*

• To divide words at the end of a line if necessary--make the break between syllables

• For line breaks, divide already-hyphenated words only at the hyphen.

These are the basics.  For a few more fine details on using hyphens for line breaks, see the Purdue OWL: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/576/01/

#4: Brackets. Use brackets in the following circumstances:

• Around statistics inside parentheses (in APA style).  Example (from the APA Style Blog):

• (See Figure 3 for the results from the control group [n=8]; compare with results from the Pink Floyd listening group [n=23] and the Beatles listening group [n=41].)

• To clarify text in a quotation.  Examples:

• Original: This renowned psychologist piloted a revolutionary new therapeutic technique.
• Quote, in which you want to identify the psychologist: This renowned psychologist [Jane Doe] piloted a revolutionary new therapeutic technique.

Note that you can't just say [Jane Doe] piloted a revolutionary new therapeutic technique.  You have to leave the original author's text intact.  You add the brackets for clarification, but you're not taking text away.  If you want to take text away, use ellipses (see above).

• To indicate, with the Latin word "sic," that an author you are quoting made an error--either in grammar or spelling or in fact.  Example: Doe wrote, "he had planned to borrow his sisters [sic] car."  (In this example, there should be an apostrophe before the final "s" in "sisters.") 

I hope this post has helped to clarify the proper use of some of the more confusing punctuation marks.  As always, happy scribbling!