Parentheses and brackets
- Parentheses are often used to enclose additional information. You need to place the period outside the parentheses unless the entire sentence is inside the parentheses. Part of the subject of a sentence should not be in parentheses.
Ex
|
Rebecca’s salary was higher (40K per year) last year. |
Rebecca’s salary was higher last year. (She still earned more than her husband.) | |
Todd (and his cousin) went fishing for the weekend. | |
Todd (accompanied by his cousin) went fishing for the weekend. |
- Brackets play a different role than parentheses. They are an interruption or change to a phrase added by someone other than the original speaker or writer to either clarify information or indicate an alteration of a quotes. They are mainly used in academic writing.
Ex
|
"[T]he wedding day was magical for everyone involved." |
*The brackets indicate that in the original quote "the" wasn’t capitalized and has been changed here. |