How to Get Fewer Em Dashes in ChatGPT Text (and Remove the Rest)
Many people notice that chatbots write a lot of long dashes. If you would rather have fewer of them, there are two practical fixes: ask for it in the prompt, and clean up whatever is left afterwards. This guide covers both, and explains what the long dash is for.
The three dashes people confuse
| Mark | Name | Code | Typical use |
|---|---|---|---|
| - | Hyphen-minus | U+002D | Joining words (well-known), minus sign |
| – | En dash | U+2013 | Ranges, such as 10–20 or 2020–2024 |
| — | Em dash | U+2014 | A break in a sentence, an aside, or a strong pause |
The em dash is the long one. It is called that because it was traditionally as wide as the letter M.
Is an em dash a sign that AI wrote something?
No. Human writers have used the em dash for a very long time, and many still do. A chatbot may use it often, but seeing one in a text proves nothing about who wrote it. If you edit AI-assisted text, the reason to change dashes is style, not to hide anything.
How to get fewer em dashes in the first place
You can ask for it directly. A few wordings that people use:
- Put a rule in your custom instructions or system prompt, such as Do not use em dashes. Use commas, periods or parentheses instead.
- Repeat the rule at the end of a specific request: Write in short sentences with no em dashes.
- Give an example of the style you want, a short paragraph written without them.
Results vary between models and versions, and a model may drift back to old habits in a long answer. So it helps to check the output and clean what is left.
What to use instead of an em dash
Most em dashes can be replaced without losing meaning. Which replacement works depends on what the dash was doing:
| If the dash was… | Use | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Adding an aside | Commas or parentheses | The plan, which took months, worked. |
| Introducing an explanation | A colon | There is one rule: keep it short. |
| Joining two full thoughts | A period or a semicolon | We tried it. It failed. |
| Marking a pause | A comma | Wait, what happened? |
| Standing in for a word | A spaced hyphen or the missing word | The result - a surprise - shipped on time. |
How to remove em dashes automatically
With the AI Text Cleaner
Paste the text and choose what an em dash should become in the Em dash option: a spaced hyphen, a comma, a space, or keep it. A dash at the start or end of a line is simply dropped. The report under the boxes tells you how many were replaced.
In Microsoft Word
Open Find and Replace and type ^+ in the Find box, which stands for an em dash. The code for an en dash is ^=.
In Google Docs
Paste an em dash character into the Find box in Find and replace and choose your replacement.
In Python
clean = text.replace("\u2014", ", ")Automatic replacement is a blunt tool. A dash used for an aside becomes a comma, which reads fine, but a dash used as a pause may need a different fix. Read the result once.
How to type an em dash yourself
- Mac:
Option+Shift+- - Windows: hold
Altand type0151on the numeric keypad - HTML:
—
Should you remove every em dash?
Not necessarily. The em dash is a legitimate mark, and used sparingly it is a good one. The aim is a natural rhythm. If a page has one in every second sentence, trimming them will make it read better, whoever wrote it.
Quick answers
What is the difference between an em dash and an en dash? The em dash marks a break or aside; the en dash is shorter and is used for ranges.
Can I just tell ChatGPT never to use em dashes? You can and it often helps, but it is not guaranteed, so a final check is sensible.
Will removing em dashes change how AI detectors rate my text? There is no reason to expect that. Detectors judge writing patterns as a whole, and changing punctuation does not turn one author into another.