BUGS in writing : a guide to debugging your prose by Dupré Lyn

Author:Dupré, Lyn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: English language, English language, Report writing
Publisher: Reading, Mass. : Addison-Wesley Pub. Co.
Published: 1995-04-14T16:00:00+00:00

SEGMENT 77 EM DASHES 319

bad: The gap between the read-write head and the hard disk is so small that you can cause a crash by inserting into the gap various particles, for example, hair, dust, or smoke.

GOOD: To ensure that the hard disk and drive assembly remain dust free, manufacturers adopt clean-room standards—for example, requiring employees to wear what often resemble Halloween ghost costumes.

>:- & « &

bad: Max's to-do list for that day was about as long as usual, that is, absurdly long.

good: Max had all the necessities of life—that is, food, shelter, warmth, and on-demand snuggles.

You should not use more than two em dashes in any one sentence. If you use more than two, your reader becomes confused about what is the baseline sentence and what is the addition. You can use parentheses or commas instead, in such cases; you can break your sentence with a semicolon and use one dash in each of the portions; or you can break your thoughts into separate sentences, each with only one pair of em dashes.

bad: Mark kept acting like a doctor—running around with his stethoscope swinging and his white coattails flying—yet he also did well as a scientist—flying around the country reviewing goodness knows what—and managed to smile most of the time.

good: Elysse had done interesting work for her doctorate (getting chased through the jungle by someone wielding a machete), and then had to write her dissertation in Palo Alto (which was tame by comparison).

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