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One of the places where there is a lot of push-back against using the dash is this: ...Q The car on the left -- what color was it? ...Q The restaurant where you were eating -- is that one ...

The second rule for using a dash is for a complete sentence that is dropped into the middle of another complete sentence. ...I am looking at the article that -- it is the first one on the page -- ...

Bill and I are in Falmouth, MA, this morning on Cape Cod, enjoying a little down time. The Massachusetts reporting group had a great convention this weekend, and I was privileged to be a part of it...

Just the basic rules for the dash. It is the third one that many people don't always remember. There are three basic reasons to use a dash:1. broken sentence structure (This is where the interrupt...

English calls for the dash for trailing off -- a sentence that got started that did not get finished. Many, many reporters are using the ellipsis. When the person uses but before he trails off, th...

Whether you want the dash inside or outside quotation marks when there is an interruption is really a matter of personal preference. When the quote is interrupted, you might decide to put the dash...

Because we see it so frequently, we tend to think of the dash as being synonymous with an interruption. We will be more accurate if we think of the dash as marking a break in the sentence structure...