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Unfortunately a lot of contests etc. are anti-AI usage without having a formal system for detecting it. In practice that means anyone using a lot of em-dashes will be flagged by a reviewer as AI-likely.

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I would say that using a lot of em-dashes was always bad writing. You want to use them sparingly if you want them to have impact.

That said, yes, keep using them (and using them well!).

This is true. I actually originally started using em-dashes because a high school english teacher called out my overuse of regular dashes (where they technically should have been em-dashes, but he didn’t know that) in the place of other types of transitions… which prompted me to research the punctuation properly and consider other ways to transition thoughts too.

Then these contests are run by lazy people and they aren't worth the effort of submitting your work to.

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