Press the hyphen button twice. Dashes represent a long pause, and can be used to replace colons and semicolons--this gives the writing a more casual and spontaneous feel. Paired dashes--like this--can be used to replace parentheses--or, as the British call them, brackets.. The poet Emily Dickinson used dashes in a very different way. In her poems, they are--well, whatever they are. Very long articles have been written about the way Dickinson used dashes, and almost every scholar has his own theories about how she used them.

There are a couple of different uses, and this might be a bit technical: 1) Hyphens are used for compound words. For example: a five-day trip. Hyphens are shorter than dashes. 2) N dashes are used for number ranges. You'd say something like this: On 12–21 May, we will be on holiday. It effectively replaces the preposition "to" (another way you could phrase my example is "From 12 to 21 May"). To insert one, press ctrl and - (Windows) or alt and - (Mac) on your keyboard. 3) M dashes are what Chris said can be used as a replacement for colons, semicolons, or brackets. There should not be a space between the m dash and the word that follows (although this is not a strict rule). For example: My brother—you met him last week—asked me to say hi. To insert, press alt + ctrl + - (Windows) or shift + alt + - (Mac). You can just stick with the regular dash, though. The difference between an n and an m dash is more important for typesetters and editors. Word usually autocorrects this.

Hello MinChang! An alternative way to find the dash, if you are using Windows, is: (1) using the search function, type "character map": then open the utility called Character Map; (2) look for "dash", then copy the dash character; (3) you can now paste it and use it wherever you want. I hope that helps! Alfonso P. S.: If you are learning Spanish you can also find the "ñ" (among many other special characters) there! :)