Dashes English Grammar Punctuation Dashes Questions What is the importance of - (dash)? When do you know when to use parenthesis versus a dash? Or is the dash called a hyphen? What's the difference? Why do people use dashes (-) in novels? What are their purpose? What is an en dash vs an em dash? Punctuation View all chapters Periods Commas Semicolons Colons Quotation Marks Parentheses and Brackets Apostrophes Hyphens Dashes Ellipses Question Marks Exclamation Points Other Punctuation Prev Next