I Miss Using Em Dashes
I really miss using em dashes in my writing. Ever since content creators started using ChatGPT to help (or supplement) their writing, em dashes have become indicators of AI use. Students are routinely caught with their pants down as professors flag an essay as AI-generated based on the presence of lists, positive-leaning prose, and em dashes. Em dashes can be found everywhere across my personal and professional writing. Nowadays, I find myself avoiding em dashes because I’m afraid that my writing will be flagged as AI-generated and dismissed as slop. I feel like I have to “dumb down” aspects of writing to convince readers that the words they are skimming were, in fact, written by a human. In turn, this results in this sort of meta-game where I choose my words carefully—typically…
