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0 pointslucasfcosta10mo ago0 comments

Co-author and founder of Briefer here.

I used to use em dashes before they were cool. I actually learned about them when I emailed a guy who's a software engineer at Genius and also writes for The New Yorker and The Atlantic.

I asked him for tips on how to write well and he recommended that I read Steven Pinker's "The Sense of Style", which uses em dashes exhaustively, and explains when and why one should use them.

It also pains me that I can't use them anymore or else people will think an AI did the writing.

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tinix10mo ago

I also recommend "The Sense of Style"; knowing how to wield punctuation and grammatical structure is critical for clearly and successfully articulating your ideas. I use semicolons, colons, and parentheticals heavily (but en dashes and em dashes are great too).

I also recommend "The Sense of Style"--knowing how to wield punctuation and grammatical structure is critical for clearly and successfully articulating your ideas--and I use semicolons, colons, and parentheticals heavily (but en dashes and em dashes are great too).

I find that dashes are great for conversational style flowing sentence structure, but sometimes they can become too long and tiring to the reader.

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