The detectives couldn’t help each other. Perhaps this “madness”—despite coming from the same source,
investigating crime scenes—was different for each of them.I’m not sure whether the comma between the em dashes is correct. Is the comma the right choice for this example?
Answer
“despite coming from the same source, investigating crime scenes” is a parenthetical statement. Within that, “investigating crime scenes” is another parenthetical statement. Using different delimiters for each statement (em dashes for the first level, and a comma for the second) is appropriate.
It could be punctuated differently, e.g.:
The detectives couldn’t help each other. Perhaps this
“madness” (despite coming from the same source – investigating crime
scenes) was different for each of them.
Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : janoChen , Answer Author : Jeffrey Kemp
