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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.

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. In turn, this results in this sort of meta-game where I choose my words carefully—typically ensuring that I include the right amount of grammatical character and/or mistakes—to convince readers that they aren’t wasting their time reading slop on the internet. We are all collectively aware of what slop “feels like” to read, and that means that serious writers are conscious of how their word choice, punctuation, and flow are perceived by readers.

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