Sorry I freaked you out! Yes, at the campaign level, you merely need to enter the negative keyword as-is. But when entering at the ad group level (Quick Add), you need the ” – ” to differentiate between a normal keyword and a negative keyword!

Quick clarification .. if you are adding negatives at the campaign level you don’t need the ” – ” correct? I read your post and freaked out thinking I had been doing something wrong for months LOL. Then I realized you are probably talking about adding the negatve at the ad group level.