In this activity, you will be asked to punctuate independent clauses using a dash.
No, not that sort of dash!
A dash is a very important piece of punctuation as it can do the job of brackets, commas or even a colon.
A dash can inject extra, important information into a sentence.
A dash can also add emphasis and give more meaning to a sentence.
Dashes are usually employed in more informal pieces of writing.
Example 1:
Upon collecting her stickers from the shop (10 in total), Sarah walked home.
This becomes...
Upon collecting her stickers from the shop - 10 in total - Sarah walked home.
In this example, the dashes took the place of the brackets and punctuated the embedded clause.
Example 2:
A dash can also be used once, rather than twice to punctuate clauses. In the example below, the dash is taking the place of a colon.
I could only see one thing - the huge, ancient castle.
Now it's over to you!