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When writing research papers, I use the phrase "evidence based" quite frequently, and vacillate between leaving it in the unhyphenated form, or editing it to "evidence-based." I have no idea why, but I think the latter just looks right, and that's how I've managed a career in writing/editing/freelance journalism to date.
Welcome.
You are right to hyphenate evidence based in some uses and to refrain from hyphenation in others.
In this case, the compound adjective should be hyphenated when it appears before the noun it modifies, but not hyphenated if it appears as a predicate. For example:
She presented a clear, evidence-based argument for adopting the proposal.
The decision of the jury was neither just nor evidence based.
Note that I find the predicate use example a bit awkward, and I would tend to rephrase this sentence in careful writing. However, if I were reporting spoken words, I should not hyphenate the compound adjective in this position.
Glenn, that's not a bad answer, and it may be the right one, but I'll offer my own and slightly different answer just to see where this leads. When a string of words is used as a single adjective, it should be hyphenated; otherwise (usually) not. This is also a good guide to when two-word terms are combined as a single word. For example:
A once-a-day event happens once a day.
A backyard barbecue happens in the back yard.
When you want to set up your profile, you may refer to the Setup section in the manual.
Your Sunday-go-to-meetin' suit is worn Sundays for going to meetin'.
"He's just a bang-beat bell-ringing big-hole great-go neck-or-nothing rip-roarin' every-time-a-bull's-eye salesman."
"She presented a clear, evidence-based argument for adopting the proposal."
"The decision of the jury was neither just nor evidence-based."
You see the difference; because "evidence-based" constitutes a single adjective in the last example, I would hyphenate it even though the noun it modifies precedes it in the sentence.
By the way, I have heard the rule—and I follow it more often than not—that adverbs, unlike nouns and adjectives, need not be hyphenated when they appear in such phrases. For example, a well cooked steak is just fine (it doesn't need to be "well-cooked". That's because the adverb is already understood to modify the adjective, not the noun. This doesn't tell us what to do with a well-thought-out plan; personally I hyphenate the whole thing, but I could see one arguing for "a well thought-out plan".
It seems to me the main purpose of hyphenation is to keep it clear just where the adjectives and nouns hang together. Usually it's clear enough, with a little thought, but as a writer my object is to free my readers to think about the content, requiring them to invest as little time as possible to parse out my grammar. And anyway, there are some phrases that are just ambiguous. I can never think of an example of this, but every time I see one in the wild I promise to write it down for later reference. And maybe I do, too, but if so I must pick a really safe place to store my examples. Just to make one up, though, consider "a wild horse trainer": Literally that should mean a horse trainer that's a bit wild, but I could be forgiven for suspecting the writer really meant a wild-horse trainer. You could change it to a wild horse training expert, which really should be a wild-horse-training expert or possibly a wild horse-training expert.
The use of compound words is a highly subjective matter and varies in its use in (even varies within) England, some countries in Europe, and in America.
There is also the aspect of "house style", which again varies from one publication/publisher to another.
There are many occasions where not compounding words leads to an ambiguous result . . . "the result of a free-falling economy." . . . "My hobby is parachuting and free falling." And the difference in meaning between "a wild horse trainer"and "a wild-horse trainer" is even more obvious! (Thanks Bob.)
There really aren't any cast-in-stone rules about this, other than to be aware of what you are writing, read and proof it thoroughly, and consider the implications of the way you have worded your text. It's subjective. And if you are writing for publication then your editor will amend anything that he doesn't agree with anyway!
Regarding your specific query, I would instinctively compound it to ". . . an evidence-based approach . . ." But that's just me. "An evidence based approach" is equally as clear and unambiguous.
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Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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