Most mistakes to do with em dashes’ are made when an individual confuses them with other punctuation. So below we’ll look at the key differences to help you avoid making similar mistakes.

Em dash vs. En Dash

One of the most common mix-ups between different punctuation has to be confusing the em dash and en dash. Not only does an em dash (—) look very similar to an en dash (–), but they also sound similar when we discuss them too, so mixing them up can be quite common. The important thing to remember is that we use an en dash between two words or numbers to represent the span of something. Or we can use an en dash for compound phrases or to show scores. The point is, en dashes behave differently to em dashes. Just remember that em dashes are for interruptions or replacing other punctuation, and en dashes are not.