Page 34 - TARGET YOUR PUNCTUATION

Target 8: Brackets and Dashes -

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Brackets ( )
Brackets are used when you want to add extra information that is not

really necessary to a sentence. They just add detail.

Anna’s red shoes (a designer pair that she had bought in Paris) looked great with her
new dress.

Brackets can also enclose a whole sentence if you want to add something

that is not an important point in your writing but is something you would
like the reader to know.

He had worked on the farm for many years. (My father had worked there too, for a
short while.)

Dashes -

A pair of dashes can be used like brackets in the middle of a sentence.
They tell the reader that you are adding some extra information.

He gathered together his belongings – he only had a briefcase, an umbrella and an old
camera – before leaving the office.

A single dash can be used to add information to the end of a sentence.

Travelling to school is easy – my house is only twenty yards from the bus stop.

NOTE – DON’T CONFUSE DASHES AND HYPHENS: Hyphens look like short

dashes and are used to join together two words to make a compound word. Do
not put spaces between the words with hyphens.
Examples:
over-excited life-like one-way

NOTE – DON’T OVER-USE BRACKETS AND DASHES.

Use them occasionally!

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