My complicated relationship with the em dash

I have a complicated relationship with the em dash. It’s a telltale sign of AI writing, and yet, it’s one of my favorite literary devices.

If you don’t know, the em dash (—) is that long dash that you might see in books, newspapers and frequently in ChatGPT and similar AI chatbots. You can use the em dash to create contrast between two statements, mark an interruption or aside, or for pure emphasis. In certain types of writing, it’s commonplace, like in written fiction or journalism. But, at least before ChatGPT, it wasn’t as common in most people’s writing. Most people would just use a normal dash ”-” in its place. Really, most people don’t know the difference. The standard dash often has the same effect as the em dash, but it’s just easier for people to type on a standard keyboard.

Now, I’ll admit, I didn’t properly know what the em dash was until ChatGPT came out. I had seen it in use, especially in news articles, but I didn’t realize it was a fully separate character. I would use just a double dash ”—” when I wanted to serve its purpose.

Once I found out what it was, though — after ChatGPT came out and people pointed out how much it loved the use of the symbol — I sort of fell in love. It’s sort of elegant and fancy, even with its overuse in things like headlines. And it makes sense. I write a lot in a journalistic style for my student newspaper, including things like headlines. And as someone who likes a good aside in my personal writing, it serves a perfect purpose, especially when taking the role of parentheses for little asides. Using em dashes for an aside keeps the thought more grounded in the text, while parentheses separate the thought as a less important note or detail.

However, I want my writing to feel personal and human, and with em dashes increasingly becoming a sign of AI text, my use of them only serves to compete with that purpose. I want it to be clear that when I write something, it comes from my brain — not an AI. Not to say that I’ve never or will never use AI to help me put my thoughts into words or rewrite a sentence in a clearer way (I believe that AI is an incredible accessibility tool, including for things like this), but my writing should still overall feel human. It’s important to me that when people read things I write, they feel they’ve made a connection with a human, not a bot.

Still, the em dash has found its way into my personal writing style. Should I avoid it to make my writing better serve its purpose and intention, even if it means letting go of a part of my personality in my writing?

I think, for me and in my writing, the answer might lie somewhere in between. In my last blog post, I used a lot of em dashes. I overused them for sure, which takes away some of their power — similar to how it’s becoming overused in some news headlines, turning it into a cliché. I think I’m going to keep using the em dash, but just attempt to use it more rarely and tastefully. And using something tastefully isn’t something ChatGPT can understand, at least for now.