How and When to Use Parentheses and Brackets

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—Bite-sized advice for better business writing—

February 27, 2019 

How and When to Use Parentheses and Brackets

“Whatever is said inside parentheses better be meaty or funny or interesting, because otherwise they stand as roadblocks of meaning.”

— Roy Peter Clark

Parentheses and brackets are handy little tools used to separate text within text. Used judiciously, they can make the text smooth and clear. Overused, as Roy Peter Clark warns, these punctuation marks can make your writing choppy and hard to read. Below are some tips for using both parentheses and brackets.

Parentheses

Follow these conventional uses of parentheses: 

Use parentheses to set off dates or other clarifying material within a sentence.
 

Please inform me if the meeting date (Tuesday, October 9) is acceptable.

Use parentheses to indicate an aside or afterthought.

Please review the updates to the new training module. (Aisha will create a username and password for you.)

Use parentheses to set off numbers in a list within a sentence.

Before we can implement the program, we need to explore (1) the necessary time frame, (2) cost factors, and (3) impact on personnel.

Use parentheses to set off references to authors, titles, or pages within a sentence.

The research clearly shows that this program will help increase employee efficiency (Smith 12).

Use parentheses to supply a technical term or translation.

The Eastern Red Cedar (Juniperus virginiana) is Briar Hill Nursery’s best seller.

Brackets

Follow these conventional uses of brackets: 
 

Use brackets if you are quoting someone and need to add material to make the quotation understandable.

Jan said, "Once the committee saw them [the results], the decision to continue funding our research was unanimous."

Use brackets around the Latin word sic, which is used within a quoted passage to show that the error was made by the original speaker or writer.

The end of the report read, “We hope you agree with our purposed [sic] recommendations."

Use brackets for unavoidable parentheses within parentheses.

Jillian (and EMT workers) was at the scene. (This sentence requires a singular verb [was] because words in parentheses cannot be a part of the subject.)

Avoiding Pitfalls

  1. Rewrite portions of text that include too many parentheses.
  2. Do not use parentheses and brackets interchangeably.
  3. Do not treat information within parentheses or brackets as part of the sentence’s subject. (See an example under the final usage for brackets.)
  4. If parentheses come at the end of the sentence, place end punctuation outside the parentheses. 
  5. We edited the new social marketing video to fall within the optimal duration for sustained engagement (around or under 90 seconds).

  6. If parenthetical material is its own sentence, capitalize it and punctuate it separately.
  7. Please watch the video. (It is 64 seconds.)

  8. Do not separately capitalize and punctuate a sentence within a sentence.
  9. The video on YouTube (it has 12,000 views) is our most popular.

Expanding Your Craft

Did you know a set of parentheses is one of three ways to set off a sentence interrupter—an explanatory word or phrase that interrupts the main action of a sentence? The other two are commas and dashes. The type of punctuation surrounding the interrupter can affect the way it is read:

  • Commas signal extra information added to the main part of the sentence.
  • Dashes emphasize the interrupting information.
  • Parentheses de-emphasize the interrupting information.
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Play the Editor!

Copy the following sentences into a document and add commas, dashes, or parentheses around bolded interrupters. (Review "Expanding Your Craft" for help.) Scroll to the bottom for our recommendations.

  1. Fremont Corporation's sales according to new market research are forecast to rise upward of 15 percent in the fourth quarter.
  2. Jo-Jo’s Coffee Roasters named after the founder’s pet beagle is the leading distributor of whole beans in the metro area.
  3. The defacement of company property and there is no doubt that the destruction was deliberate is cause for termination.
  4. Your payment of $1,828.58 past due amount, plus 1.25 percent interest will keep your account in good standing and avoid further interest charges and penalties.
  5. Your background credentials though commendable do not match our current needs in terms of work experience.
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Get More Support

Check out Write for Business online for a complete guide to punctuation and other conventions of English.

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  1. Fremont Corporation's sales, according to new market research, are forecast to rise upward of 15 percent in the fourth quarter.
  2. Jo-Jo’s Coffee Roasters (named after the founder’s pet beagle) is the leading distributor of whole beans in the metro area.
  3. The defacement of company property—and there is no doubt that the destruction was deliberate—is cause for termination.
  4. Your payment of $1,828.58 (past due amount, plus 1.25 percent interest) will keep your account in good standing and avoid further interest charges and penalties.
  5. Your background credentials, though commendable, do not match our current needs in terms of work experience.