By Malissa The Writer
Chile…it’s a little tricky so pay attention.
How do you use parentheses and do you feel confident you’re using it right? Let’s test and see! Look at the sentences below and select the one using parentheses correctly.
Sample #1: The president (and his assistant) were expected to arrive by 10:00 a.m.
Sample #2: My neighbor (who plays the piano.) loves to host parties.
Sample #3: I sped up on the highway (By almost 30 mph) to catch up to my husband.
Alright hand your papers up to the front and let’s see what you got starting with sample number one. This sentence does not use parentheses correctly. The reason why this sentence is wrong is because the verb ‘were’ implies more than one and the assistant is mentioned in parentheses; meaning it doesn’t exist outside of the parentheses. Let me explain it another way. Words in a sentence have to act as if the words in parentheses do not exist. Therefore, using ‘were’ implies there’s someone else, but there shouldn’t be because outside the parentheses the assistant doesn’t exist. Sample two is not correct. Why? Because you cannot punctuate words in parentheses unless it’s with a question mark (?) or exclamation (!). Lastly, sample three is not correct because ‘By’ should not be capitalized unless it’s a proper noun (for example, the Brooklyn Bridge).
Well I tricked you and made all of them incorrect, just like your teacher did in school. Yay! Memories lol. All joking aside, here are two sample sentences using parentheses correctly:
Sample # 4: I went to her house yesterday (my third attempt to see her), but she had left town.
Sample #5: He declares (and why should we doubt his good faith?) that he is now certain of success.
Bonus #6: (When a wholly detached expression or sentence is parenthesized, the final stop comes before the last mark of the parenthesis.)
In conclusion, parentheses can sometimes be confusing to use because of the rules. Sometimes I forget myself, which is why I always give sample sentences as examples. If you don’t remember anything else remember this: the purpose of parentheses is to provide a writer with the opportunity to make a private expression about something in the sentence, but it doesn’t exist outside the parentheses.
If you have follow-up questions send me an email at [email protected] and I’ll try to help you as much as I can.
As usual, if you have any questions feel free to email me at [email protected].
(Sample sentence #1 from https://www.thepunctuationguide.com/parentheses.html and sample sentences 4-6 from The Elements of Style)
