Decision making or decision-making?

Do you need a hyphen in decision-making?

Reader’s question: Should decision making be hyphenated in noun form i.e. decision-making?

Answer: You can use either decision making or decision-making in noun form, but decision-making is becoming more common.

Just be consistent.

Everyone in the team had a role in the decision making.
Everyone in the team had a role in the decision-making.

Traditionally, we would hyphenate decision-making when the two words acted as a unit with an adjectival meaning, e.g. decision-making paper. We would not hyphenate decision making in noun form, i.e. a noun+ gerund (noun derived from a verb).

The decision-making process lasted for weeks.
She took no part in the decision making.

However, when two words are commonly used together, the hyphen sometimes takes over and this is what is happening here.

The online Macquarie Dictionary has decision-making as a noun and the 17th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style (7.89) says decision-making is now hyphenated as both an adjective and a noun.

Learn more

Read my blog on hyphens.

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