Em dash/parentheses/nothing

Question

This is a sentence I can't figure out:

"The following is a picture of the unfinished and therefore uninsured car on which I've been working."

Or: (and therefore uninsured)

Or: —and therefore uninsured—

For the record, the fact that it's uninsured is not some minor detail but a point that's important and one I've emphasized earlier, if that makes a difference.

So which one? And how can you tell? And for future situations, how would you describe the difference of when to go with either the em dash or parentheses? Thanks!

Clive · Accepted Answer

it's fine to just say
"The following is a picture of the unfinished and therefore uninsured car on which I've been working."

Broadly speaking, my feeling is this. Dashes and parentheses are commonly a sign of weak sentence structure. If you take the time to structure your writing correctly, you will find them unnecessary.

Some other people here are likely to disagree with my views on this.

Clive

Starvinghysterical · Answer

Clive, I respect your opinion (even though your views might make you a little biased in answering my question), but then how would you account for any number of great writers using either/or through history?

Clive · Answer

I said 'broadly speaking'.
If you feel you are close to being a great writer, use your own judgement.

Here is an article on em-dashes that may interest you.
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_good_word/2011/05/the_caseplease_hear_me_outagainst_the_em_dash.html

Clive

Starvinghysterical · Answer

Clive, appreciated the article. It was interesting and at times hilarious.

But for example: "When the New York Times' associate managing editor for standards—Philip B. Corbett, for the record—wrote a blog post scolding Times writers for overusing the dash (as many as five dashes snuck their way into a single 3.5-paragraph story on A1, to his horror) …"

So this is talking about an overuse of dashes in one article, but when you look at my sentence you don't know how many dashes were in MY previous 3.5 paragraphs.

So you say "broadly speaking"—and I understand that—and the article seems to be talking about a larger societal problem of dashes. I just hope your main focus is not the correction of this problem. When I give you my sentence I'm asking you to judge it on a sentence-by-sentence basis because I believe there are some sentences in which a dash IS the best choice. If you were doing that and mine was not one of those, I get that.

And when I say "great" I wasn't talking about me. All I'm saying is if e.g. Norman Mailer uses dashes, who am I to be above them?

Clive · Answer

This is a sentence I can't figure out:

"The following is a picture of the unfinished and therefore uninsured car on which I've been working." This version gives equal importance to 'unfinished' and 'uninsured'. This seems best to me, because you say below that you emphasized 'uninsured' earlier in your text.

Or: (and therefore uninsured) Broadly speaking

, parentheses suggest that the point they contain is of lesser importance.

Or: —and therefore uninsured— Again broadly speaking, a pair of em dashes suggests that you have just had a sudden thought while writing your sentence. This does not seem to be true in your case.

For the record, the fact that it's uninsured is not some minor detail but a point that's important and one I've emphasized earlier, if that makes a difference.

So which one? And how can you tell? And for future situations, how would you describe the difference of when to go with either the em dash or parentheses? See my comments above.
And as a general comment, my opinion is that in all writing, it is a good idea to avoid unnecessary punctuation of all kind, because modern prose tends to favour an uncluttered look.

Can I be of any further help to you with this?
Clive

Starvinghysterical · Answer

Lol no good. Hope I didn't take up too much of your time. I, for one, enjoyed the discussion.

Em dash/parentheses/nothing

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