Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

60%
+1 −0
Q&A How to tell where to place a parenthetical em dash phrase?

The key is in what "as were the others" refers back to. It's not just "the chairs." It's not even that "the chairs were upside-down." It's that "the other chairs" are in a specific state of being...

posted 10y ago by Lauren Ipsum‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-13T12:00:27Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/14777
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T03:56:56Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/14777
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T03:56:56Z (about 5 years ago)
The key is in what "as were the others" refers back to.

It's not just "the chairs." It's not even that "the chairs were upside-down." It's that "the other chairs" are in a specific state of being that you are matching: upside-down AND _on the table_.

> After returning the materials back to their shelves, I turned the chair upside down on the table — as were the others — and followed the girl.

Also, when doing that kind of parenthetical, with a sentence fragment, make sure your grammar is parallel. "Were" is the verb "to be," and you don't have that earlier in your sentence. So:

> After returning the materials back to their shelves, I turned the chair upside down on the table — like the others — and followed the girl.

* * *

In all honesty, I don't think this interrupter is important enough to merit M-dashes. I wouldn't even use commas.

> After returning the materials back to their shelves, I turned the chair upside down on the table like the others and followed the girl.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2015-01-03T18:30:49Z (almost 10 years ago)
Original score: 4