Why nuclease free water ruined my experiment (but at least it was free), or why the short dash matters.

There are different types of punctuation marks that are referred to as dashes. These include the short dash or hyphen (-), the en dash (-) and the em dash (-). Each of these marks has a purpose, some of which I have discussed previously. In this editor's corner I am going to try to convince you of the importance of the short dash/hyphen. This is important stuff, so please bear with me. As an editor, and in the interests of scientific accuracy, I am trying to/having to correct errors involving the short dash all of the time. But I will not always be here, and I do not have a chance to edit your papers submitted to other journals (although why you would submit to another journal is an entire topic in and of itself), so it behooves you to pay attention.