Is AI Killing the Em-Dash?

A colleague recently asked me for feedback on some writing, and when I sent back revisions changing his en-dashes to em-dashes, he asked if I was working for ChatGPT.  I was confused until he explained that ChatGPT apparently loves em-dashes.  I’d never noticed this, but, just like when you buy a new car and suddenly see the same make and model everywhere, I couldn’t stop seeing AI’s em-dash usage.

Apparently, em-dashes are so prevalent in the training data that they are effectively “baked into their DNA.”[i]  One writer tried everything in his arsenal to eliminate them from ChatGPT’s responses but concluded that it was “like asking a bird not to chirp.”[ii] According to a community forum for OpenAI, “the em dash wasn’t flagged during AI training as something special or risky, so the models never learned to avoid it.”[iii]  Sadly, an unintended consequence is that people are now avoiding the em-dash to keep their writing from giving the appearance of generative AI-created content.[iv] What once made prose look daring now makes it look automated.

This is bad news for lawyers, as the em-dash is a highly versatile punctuation mark that does a lot of heavy lifting in written communication.

It can be used to provide structure to a lengthy sentence, to tuck an aside in the middle, to add emphasis, or to do any combination of these. What it sets off may explain, expand on, qualify, clarify, or restate — almost anything, really. It can replace a comma or commas, a colon, parentheses (with more emphasis, of course), and occasionally even a period.[v]

In fact, the em-dash is a frequent favorite in dissenting opinions,[vi] probably because of its ability to draw contrasts and create emphasis.

Though the em-dash was once reviled in formal writing,[vii] writers now recognize that “[u]sing an em dash . . . can improve the readability of a sentence.”[viii] But those singing its praises always accompany their accolades with words of warning—overuse destroys the magic.

I would add that association with AI-generated content tends to do the same. Rightly or wrongly, there is undeniably a stigma associated with AI-written content, especially in the legal profession, which relies so heavily on the written word.  Thus, it is deeply disappointing that one of the more valuable tools of our trade has been cheapened by the advent of artificial intelligence.

But how do we preserve its value? I decided to go straight to the source of the problem and asked ChatGPT. Here’s what it told me:

AI tends to deploy em-dashes reflexively, as a generic pause or connector. Human writers can preserve its value by using it sparingly and purposefully — for drama, interruption, or revelation. If every dash on the page feels earned, it signals craftsmanship, not automation.

Ironically, ChatGPT then offered to write me a concluding manifesto-style paragraph, calling my fellow writers to arms, and I have to confess, it’s pretty inspiring:

The em-dash is ours. It belongs not to the machines that scatter it like digital breadcrumbs, but to the writers who know its weight, its timing, its sting. To abandon it now — out of fear of being mistaken for a bot — would be to surrender one of our most unruly, most human marks. So let us reclaim it. Let us dash not because an algorithm would, but because only we know when a sentence needs to leap, to pause, to break open. The em-dash survives if we choose it deliberately, defiantly, as a signature of human thought. Use it — and keep it alive.

So there you have it.  Use your em dashes wisely and sparingly.  (And, yes, it is hilarious that both of ChatGPT’s responses continued to scatter those digital breadcrumbs.)

[i] Brent Csutoras, The Em Dash Dilemma: How a Punctuation Mark Became AI’s Stubborn Signature, available at: https://medium.com/@brentcsutoras/the-em-dash-dilemma-how-a-punctuation-mark-became-ais-stubborn-signature-684fbcc9f559 (last access Sept. 8, 2025).

[ii] Id.

[iii] Id.

[iv] Id.

[v] Joseph Kimble, The Wonderfully Versatile Em-Dash, 104 Mich. B.J. 40 (June 2025), available at: https://www.michbar.org/journal/Details/The-wonderfully-versatile-em-dash?ArticleID=5126 (last accessed Sept. 8, 2025).

[vi] Brian Craig, Effective Use of the Hyphen, En Dash, and Em Dash in Legal Writing, 66 Fed. Law. 44, 46 (September/October 2019), available at: https://www.fedbar.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Craig.pdf (last access Sept. 8, 2025).

[vii] George D. Gopen, A Once Rogue Punctuation Mark Gains Respectability: What You Can Now Accomplish with an Em Dash, 46 Litig. 13 (Fall 2019).

[viii] Elizabeth Ruiz Frost, Decoding Hyphens, Dashes and Ellipses Dashes and Dots, 75 Or. St. B. Bull. 13, 14 (July 2015).