Which dash to use with abbreviations in my protocol correction?
Hi, first of all, English is my second language, and while the grammar rules are often easier than in my native tongue, I am confused about the correct dashes to use with abbreviations and acronyms.
Yes, I did scour the dash Wikipedia page, but I am still unsure.
In my Biochemistry protocol, I abbreviated "high performance liquid chromatography with a diode array detector" to HPLC-DAD. My professor now highlighted this with the note "HPLC–DAD; Please correct all instances. Pay attention to hyphen length. It differs from German."
He seems to have used the en dash in his correction. I have no problem correcting all HPLC-DAD and UPLC-TOFMS instances with the correct dash.
However, I am confused about things like "MS-Finder" and MS-Dial", do I use the em dash, en dash or just normal "-" in instances where it is not completely an acronym?
TL;DR, which dash do I use for terms like MS-Dial compared to full acronyms like HPLC–DAD?