Tham khảo tài liệu 'mastering machanics 1', ngoại ngữ, anh ngữ phổ thông phục vụ nhu cầu học tập, nghiên cứu và làm việc hiệu quả | Chapter 6 Made You Look Punctuation Marks That Demand Attention 83 To interrupt the flow of thought with another idea. I will not attend the ball how could I when my glass slipper is cracked no matter how much you beg. Notice that the material inserted into the sentence between the two dashes doesn t begin with a capital letter even though in another situation it can stand alone as a complete sentence. To summarize or define a list. Lip gloss bug repellent stun gun Megan had everything she needed for her big date. The dash divides the list from its definition which is everything Megan thinks she needs on a date. If you re not feeling dramatic use a colon to precede a list. A colon does the same job grammatically with less flash than the dash. To show incompleteness. You don t carry stun Megan was nearly speechless at the thought of a date without her trusty stun gun. The dash shows that the sentence is incomplete. To create drama. May I introduce the best golfer in Antarctica Sam Spearly. The dash is the equivalent of a drumroll in this sentence. In the sample sentence Sam Spearly may be preceded by a comma if you favor a quieter approach. See Chapter 5 for more information on commas. When you plop a dash into a sentence don t place a comma before or after it unless you re showing incompleteness and the sentence requires a comma after the dash. Dashes aren t appropriate in some situations. Keep these points in mind Too many dashes are really annoying to the reader. Dashes can t be used to join complete sentences. You can t send a dash to do a hyphen s job. Now dash through these questions inserting dashes where appropriate. By the way did you notice that I didn t say where needed That s because dashes aren t required anywhere. Other punctuation marks colons or parentheses for example may substitute for the dash though they re usually less dramatic. Note that you may have to knock out another punctuation mark before inserting a dash. Q. As usual Debbie brought too .
