You’ve seen it — that long, dramatic dash showing up in every other sentence online.
AI writing tools love it. Bloggers love it. Designers love how it looks.
But the humble em dash (—) has become the avocado toast of punctuation: trendy, overused, and sometimes misunderstood.
So, what is an em dash?
It’s that long line — longer than a hyphen (-) and an en dash (–). It’s used to create a pause or emphasis stronger than a comma, but not quite a full stop. Think of it as the punctuation equivalent of taking a quick dramatic breath.
Examples:
The event sold out in two hours — no surprise there.
Accessibility isn’t just a checkbox — it’s good design.
I told myself I’d take a day off — that didn’t happen.
Why writers love it
- It’s clean and modern.
- It keeps sentences moving.
- It feels conversational and natural.
Basically, it’s punctuation with swagger.
Why AI really loves it
AI models (yep, including ours) use em dashes to mimic human rhythm and personality. It’s a quick way to make generated text feel “alive” and less robotic. The problem? Too many em dashes and your writing starts to feel like it’s gasping for air.
How to use it (without overdoing it)
- Use one or two per paragraph — max.
- Don’t replace every comma with an em dash.
- Make sure your sentence still makes sense if you remove it.
How to type it
Mac: Shift + Option + Hyphen (–)
Windows: Alt + 0151
HTML: —
iPhone/iPad: Hold down the hyphen (-) until it appears
Final thought
Used well, the em dash is your best friend — a little drama, a little polish.
Used everywhere, it’s just chaos.
So go ahead and use it — but make it count.