The dash and hyphen are often confused but serve different purposes. The dash is longer and used to interrupt or add an aside to a sentence. The hyphen is shorter and used to join words or word parts, such as in compound adjectives, prefixes, and fractions. Proper use of dashes adds emphasis while hyphens clarify meaning through word combinations.

1. PUNCTUATION Dash And Hyphen

2. The Dash and The Hyphen The look almost the same, but do completely different things Dash — (a little longer) Hyphen - (a little shorter)

3. The Dash — Rule 1 A detour or interrupter Can be used in place of a colon Remember, you need an independent clause before the dash It was my worst nightmare — cold pizza.

4. The Dash — Rule 2 Used instead of parentheses to enclose an aside. Aside = A diversion His new car was amazing — it was a 2010 Lamborghini — but he could never drive it outside.

5. The Dash — If your keyboard does not have the Dash symbol, use TWO HYPHENS - - Use no more than 2 per sentence

6. The Hyphen - Rule 1 Separates individual words or parts of words. Mother-in-law two-thirds Self-confident Ex-president Three-quarters

7. Hyphen - Which words get hyphens are which do not If the word pair comes before a noun, use a hyphen to combine the words He is a strong-willed father . Those are water-resistant ducks . I have a red-haired cousin .

8. Hyphen - Always use a hyphen when one of the words is self, quasi, ex, like, and fractions *Quasi = resembling He is self-confident . She is our quasi-officia l leader. He is the ex-president . His helmet is shell-like . He ate two-thirds of the pie.