You can use a colon to divide a sentence into two independent clauses if the clauses are directly related. Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash What Is a Colon?Ī colon can be used to introduce information in a sentence to clarify the point better. This helps the reader to easily digest the idea of potentially different items and focus them on one thing.Įxample: The clear blue water, the open sky, the glorious sunshine - all I wish to witness in the Maldives. However, when the list appears first, it’s best to connect the list to the clause with an em dash. You can use a colon between the clause and the list when a statement starts with an independent clause and concludes with a list. An Em Dash Instead of a ColonĪn em dash might be used instead of a colon when you wish to emphasize the conclusion or end of a sentence. With an em dash: There has been a major increase - though opposed by the students - in the tuition fees of private university students. With parentheses: There has been a major increase (though opposed by the students) in the tuition fees of private university students. Remember that when using dashes instead of parentheses, the surrounding punctuation should be omitted. An em dash creates a more noticeable stoppage and, as a result, more emphasis. Use dashes to attract emphasis to the content of the parentheses. Dashes are less formal than parentheses, and they’re also more noticeable. Place a pair of dashes in the same spot as you’d put parentheses. In such cases, you can use em dashes instead of a comma.Ĭonfusing Sentence: The three of us, Laura, Jenny, and I, went on a 3-day trip last month.Ĭlear Sentence: The three of us - Laura, Jenny, and I - went on a 3-day trip last month. But when you have multiple commas in an appositive, the content can confuse the reader. Dashes have a slightly more emphatic feel, making the reader focus on the information placed inside the special marks.Ĭommas usually balance appositives, which are small segments of information for clarification. When writing a parenthetical phrase, you can use dashes in pairs to replace commas. Let’s look at two common instances where an em dash can be replaced in place of different punctuation. An em dash can be used as a comma, parentheses, or colon, although it has a somewhat different effect in each case. However, this punctuation is more like a semicolon which is underutilized in writing. When to Use an Em Dash?Įm dashes have various uses and can be used in place of other punctuations. The narrowest of all these dashes is a hyphen (-). It has a similar width as a capital letter N. On the other hand, it has another variation named an “en dash (–),” which is slightly narrower. In fact, the dash (-) is named for its length as it is the same width as the capital letter M in the alphabet. Despite its versatility, this dash differs from other hyphens and dashes significantly in both usage and appearance. The dash, specifically an em dash, is the most versatile punctuation mark. To understand the difference, here’s a quick run-down on the usage of an em dash and colon. The confusion between a colon, semi-colon, or dash is pretty common. Since these carriers also have so many different prepaid cellphone plan options, I'll focus on the best options for under 5GB of data, under 15GB of data and the best unlimited plans.Have you ever wondered when an em dash or colon should be used in a sentence? Or what is the difference between the two punctuations? Well, that depends entirely on how you want to present your data. There are a ton of prepaid service providers, but for this article, I'm going to focus on just a few: Boost Mobile, Cricket, Mint, Google Fi Wireless, MobileX, Tracfone, Metro by T-Mobile, Total by Verizon, Verizon Prepaid and AT&T Prepaid. If you want to switch over, these are the best prepaid phone plans for August 2023. Traditional wireless providers tout unlimited data plans as the big attraction, but smaller carriers still offer a variety of plans with high-speed data or even a better price on unlimited plans. But if you want to save money on your mobile plan, there are several smaller providers that can get you reliable service at a cheaper rate. Most cellphone users subscribe directly to mobile providers like AT&T, T-Mobile or Verizon for their wireless service.
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