Template:Slashes and hyphens

Slashes or hyphens for combined methods

QUOTED TEXT FROM IUPAC RECOMMENDATIONS 2013
The hyphen, or alternatively the slash (forward stroke), can be used to indicate combined methods such as gas chromatography separation combined with mass spectrometry detection. Thus, the above combination can be written as gas chromatography-mass spectrometry or alternatively as gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. The corresponding abbreviations are GC-MS or GC/MS. The first use of a hyphen to indicate the combination of a separation method with mass spectrometry was in the early 1960s [1], and the use of a slash separator was in the 1970s [2]. The term hyphenated techniques was coined in 1980 [3]. Currently, hyphens and slashes are used interchangeably [4]. The journal Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry has in the past recommended that the combination of two analytical techniques be designated by a slash (Conventions adopted by RCM in Advice to Authors. Rapid Commun. Mass Spectrom. 17, Issue 1 (2003)). A recent Journal of Chromatography glossary also favors this usage [5]. IUPAC recommends that hyphens be used to describe variants of separation techniques, for example, gas-liquid chromatography and pyrolysis-gas chromatography [6]. The authors of this document are evenly split in their preference for hyphen or slash. For consistency with the prior recommendations, we use the hyphen for combined techniques but note that the slash can be used interchangeably.
From Definitions of Terms Relating to Mass Spectrometry (IUPAC Recommendations 2013); DOI: 10.1351/PAC-REC-06-04-06 © IUPAC 2013.