The em dash check: keeping long dashes rare in your copy
The em dash check counts the long dashes (—) in the words a visitor can read on a page. Two or fewer passes. Three or more fails, with the count shown in the Report tab. Nothing is wrong with the mark itself; the problem is the rhythm a page takes on when every second sentence hinges on one.
Why a punctuation mark became a tell
Writers have always used the em dash for an aside or a sudden turn. Language models use it constantly. Ask one for marketing copy and you tend to get sentences built the same way: a setup, a dash, a payoff. “Fresh bread — baked before sunrise.” “Your books — finally in order.” Read one such line and it's fine. Read a whole page of them and it sounds like a voice-over, and readers who've seen a lot of generated text now spot the pattern quickly. The em dash has become one of the most talked-about signs of machine-written copy, fairly or not.
That's why the limit isn't zero. A single well-placed dash is ordinary punctuation. The check is aimed at density, the point where the dash stops being a choice and becomes a tic.
How the count works
- What's counted
- The em dash character, U+2014, anywhere in the page body's text: headings, paragraphs, buttons, list items, FAQ answers and the footer.
- What isn't
- En dashes (–), hyphens, and two hyphens typed in a row. Text inside the page's stylesheet and head isn't part of the count.
- The threshold
- Two or fewer passes. The Report tab shows how many it found, for example “5 in the copy”.
- Multi-page sites
- Each page is counted on its own, so the limit is two per page rather than two across the site. A failure names the page it came from.
Four rewrites that usually work
Most dashed sentences fall into a few shapes, and each has a plainer form:
| Dashed version | Rewritten |
|---|---|
| Setup and payoff: “Fresh bread — baked before sunrise.” | One sentence: “Bread baked before sunrise.” |
| An aside: “Our team — all qualified electricians — answers every call.” | Commas, or a second sentence: “Every call is answered by a qualified electrician.” |
| A list lead-in: “Three things matter — price, speed and care.” | A colon: “Three things matter: price, speed and care.” |
| A dramatic turn: “It's not just coffee — it's a ritual.” | Say the real point: “We roast in small batches every Tuesday.” |
The last row is worth dwelling on. Many dashes prop up a contrast that says nothing specific. Replacing the punctuation doesn't help; replacing the claim with a fact does. The guide to writing website copy that doesn't sound like AI has more on that, and the design article on em dashes in web copy looks at the typography side.
Where the dashes come from in an Anticode build
The stock copy in Anticode's design engine uses almost no em dashes, so a failing count usually means words were added later. Text you paste in from elsewhere is the most common source. Because the Critic runs again after visual edits, code edits, change requests and restores, the count updates as you rewrite, and you can watch it fall. You can also ask for the fix in words, such as “rewrite the services section without em dashes”; check the count afterwards to see that it took.
Limits
- Advisory only. The em dash check is one of the Critic's nineteen checks. It isn't part of the publish-time design gate, so a page with ten dashes can still be published.
- It counts, it doesn't read. A legitimate dash in a quotation or a date range written with the wrong character counts the same as a lazy one.
- Swapping characters isn't a fix. Replacing each em dash with an en dash or a double hyphen will pass the check and leave the same rhythm. The point is the sentence shape.
- Pages, not apps. It runs on design-engine pages; model-written apps are checked differently.
Questions people ask
Is using an em dash a mistake?
No. It's normal punctuation. The em dash check only fails a page with three or more, because at that density the copy starts to sound templated.
Does the check count en dashes or hyphens?
No. It counts only the em dash character. En dashes, hyphens and double hyphens aren't counted.
Do dashes in my FAQ and footer count?
Yes. Everything a visitor can read in the page body is counted, including FAQ answers, buttons and the footer.
Will too many em dashes stop me publishing?
No. The result shows in the Report tab so you can decide; the design gate doesn't enforce this one.