em-dash

Use the em-dash between the dateline and the start of the first paragraph, surrounded by spaces; before attribution to a quote in a pull quote; and to indicate an interruption or an aside in a sentence. Surround the em-dash with a single space on each side.

Examples:

• Rapids City, IA — Three people sat in a silent protest outside city hall Tuesday.
• Seattle, WA — A new coffee business dedicated to disabled justice opened Thursday in the famed Public Market.
• “We need to make every single thing accessible to every single person with a disability.” ― Stevie Wonder, musician
• “I’m going to lower —” the president began to say as protesters interrupted his speech.
• This is the third time the bill was voted down — I think.
• I’m going to buy a house next year — if I save enough money.
• There were hundreds of people gathered — several groups including Disability Rights Atlanta, Long Covid Now and Georgia for Disability had put out the call — to hold a silent protest.

How to create an em-dash:

• On an Apple operating system: Shift+Option with the minus/hyphen.
• On a Windows operating system: Ctrl+Alt with the minus/hyphen OR use the key command Alt and 0151.
• HTML entity: —

Because screen readers may either misinterpret or ignore the em-dash, it is best to use the em-dash for interruptions and asides sparingly. When possible, move such content to a separate, following sentence.

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