Parentheticals make writing more dynamic and interesting by breaking up the regular syntax (which can get plodding and dull). They make pace vary-- sudden breaks and stops make writing sound more like actual vocal conversation and its irregular cadence. Authors, many of whom are not all that good at their craft (*cough* Twilight *cough*), can make a pointless and plotless text engaging through use of parentheticals. It also gives an author more flexibility in addressing a topic and adding information by, well, allowing information to be added essentially anywhere in a sentence.

When an author wants to use a parenthetical to explain or comment upon an event or fact, they can do it in two ways-- with emphasis on the additional comment or explanation or without emphasis. If the author doesn't want emphasis, he or she sets off the comment with parentheses: Charlie met his wife at the seaside peer (where, incidentally, his father met his mother). The focus is still on Charlie though we have another expository idea. If an author wants to comment within a comment (meaning that he or she wants to use parentheses within a parenthetical [which occasionally happens]), the inner set used square brackets instead of round parentheses. Remember, end punctuation always goes on the outside of parentheses (meaning commas, periods, and the like).

If the author wants to emphasize the additional information, he or she uses a dash: Uncle Charlie--the most kind and generous of my three uncles-- was never a rich man. Note the difference between a hyphen (-) and a dash (--); hyphens are a single short line and combine while dashes are two short lines and separate.

5. Explanations and comments

Relative clauses are dependent clauses that modify nouns and come in two flavors: restrictive and nonrestrictive. Restrictive relative clauses are essential to the meaning of the sentence and, when spoken, are smooth (The man that married my aunt dresses likes to dress like a woman). Nonrestrictive relative clauses, however, interrupt the sentence flow and act as a parenthetical (The man, who likes to dress like a woman, married my aunt). Nonrestrictive clauses are always set off by commas.

4. Nonrestrictive relative clauses

We are used to conjunctive adverbs coming at the start of a sentence (Finally, I had a clown in my life). But what happens when, say, a conjunctive adverb is inserted in the middle of a sentence (like the word 'say' in this one)? That is, in fact, a parenthetical, and it gets surrounded by commas.

3. A mid-sentence conjunctive adverb

2. An aside

An appositive is a single word that renames a noun prior to it (My dog Smuckers likes to eat ants). An appositive phrase is a string of words that does the same thing (If you, the self-appointed king of cool, can't get a date, what chance do I have?). Notice that appositive phrases break up the sentence flow and need to be surrounded by commas.

A parenthetical is a nonessential sentence interruption-- when a sentence takes a quick detour from its normal pace and gets interrupted. Parentheticals are essential for both narrative writing (where they can pop in and give expository detail) and in academic writing  (where they are used [and often required] for source citation and elaboration). Unlike, say, a conjunctive adverb or modifying phrase, which provide additional information in a smooth way, parentheticals are meant to be abrupt in style. There are five types of parentheticals:  

​(Parentheses)

Parentheses are rounded enclosers and should never be substituted with [brackets], {braces}, or <chevrons>. Parentheses enclose sets of words, phrases, and clauses that explain or comment on the main sentence but are not grammatically connected to the sentence. The most common of these is the parenthetical, which you can find more about here:

• The discussion we had (the one that went into the wee hours of the morning) was all about how she couldn’t give into his demands. (add a parenthetical phrase)
• He popped in his favorite DVD (She's All That, 1999) and grabbed the popcorn. (add description)
• The President blustered with his typical brutum fulmen (empty threat). (add a phrasal translation)
• Dante (1265--1321) wrote his Divine Comedy right after his expulsion from Florence. (add a range of dates)
• His unease is clear: "That cry has startled [Poirot]" (Christie 35). (add citation)
• Knowing a car's MSRP (Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price) helps negotiations at the car dealership. (explain abbreviations)
• The Greek letter sigma (Σ) is used in math to show summation. (add a single character appositive)

Parentheses are rounded enclosers and should never be substituted with [brackets], {braces}, or <chevrons>. Parentheses enclose sets of words, phrases, and clauses that explain or comment on the main sentence but are not grammatically connected to the sentence. The most common of these is the parenthetical, which you can find more about here:

• The discussion we had (the one that went into the wee hours of the morning) was all about how she couldn’t give into his demands. (add a parenthetical phrase)
• He popped in his favorite DVD (She's All That, 1999) and grabbed the popcorn. (add description)
• The President blustered with his typical brutum fulmen (empty threat). (add a phrasal translation)
• Dante (1265--1321) wrote his Divine Comedy right after his expulsion from Florence. (add a range of dates)
• His unease is clear: "That cry has startled [Poirot]" (Christie 35). (add citation)
• Knowing a car's MSRP (Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price) helps negotiations at the car dealership. (explain abbreviations)
• The Greek letter sigma (Σ) is used in math to show summation. (add a single character appositive)

[Brackets]

Brackets have square corners to contrast with the rounded parentheses (and are not to be confused with {braces}, which are not used in formal writing). Brackets have only two formal uses in proper writing. First, brackets are used to contain editorial additions to quotations, even if these additions are clarifications:

• “We drove all the way to Washington [State].” (add additional information)
• "[T]ime for my walk. Goodbye, Selma," Sideshow Bob said. (correcting incorrect capitalization)
  
• "She never said they were her fingerprints" [emphasis original]. (indicates if emphasis is original or added by writer)
  
• “I know that there is light in this darkness, and that I can actuly [sic] reach it if I keep walking, keep moving to it.” (correcting spelling using sic)
• "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. [. . .] in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only." (adding ellipses to indicate missing sections of the quotation)

Brackets also indicate a parenthetical inside another parenthetical: He finally left (thinking [wrongly] he was free). As with parentheses, end punctuation goes outside the brackets.

<Chevrons> 

Chevrons (also called angle brackets) aren't used very often in English, though a double chevron (called a guillemet) is used in languages like French, Italian, Greek, Arabic, and Chinese instead of quotation marks. Chevrons do have two roles in English punctuation. First, chevrons indicate a sentence that is in a foreign language but translated.

Melissa knew she had only thirty minutes before the bomb would detonate -- she just hoped she remembered her Russian.
<Where have you hidden the device?> she demanded.
Boris laughed and spat at her. <I'm not telling you anything, American scum!>

Chevrons are also used formally in drama to indicate when to characters are talking over each other:

EAST: You've pitched a tent >
GLORY: So I have a place to sleep >
EAST: ...in my yard.
GLORY: ...after I see them. I hope you don't mind.

EAST: You've pitched a tent >
GLORY: So I have a place to sleep >
EAST: ...in my yard.
GLORY: ...after I see them. I hope you don't mind.

EAST: You've pitched a tent >
GLORY: So I have a place to sleep >
EAST: ...in my yard.
GLORY: ...after I see them. I hope you don't mind.

EAST: You've pitched a tent >
GLORY: So I have a place to sleep >
EAST: ...in my yard.
GLORY: ...after I see them. I hope you don't mind.

Additionally, the internet has found informal use of chevrons to indicate physical actions that someone is portraying while typing <grinning>. This is not used in formal writing like and essay <yawning> and has mostly been replaced by emojis <sticking out tongue>. Chevrons are also indispensable in coding, as they indicate URLs and embed code commands. While chevrons used to enclose URL addresses, they no longer serve this purpose.

​FURTHER READING

"Quotation marks"

Quotation marks surround words words that the narrator or author of a piece isn't saying. Wait, what? An author's role is to communicate directly to the reader in a piece of writing, even if this is indirectly done with a character narrator. However, sometimes an author is sharing with a reader what characters say to one another (dialogue) or what others than the author have said about a topic (direct quotation). 

• For narrative dialogue, quotation marks surround the full sentence spoken by the character so we know just what their words are: Jim said, "I'm not like you, and I'll never be like you!" Notice that the quoted text is the direct object of said. To keep speakers of dialogue clear, an author must add paragraph breaks every time a new character speaks dialogue. To learn more about the grammar of dialogue, click here. 

​

• For edifying texts, quotation marks surround words that come from another text and are often followed by a proper source citation: Perry emphasizes his fear when he says to Dick, "Nuns are a bad luck bunch" (Capote 56). If a line of quoted material exceeds three lines, it is set off into its own paragraph with indents on either side (this is called a block quote). To learn more about using quotes in edifying texts, click here.

​

• Quotation marks are also used to indicate the titles of short works that come from a larger whole, including titles of poems, television episodes, songs, short stories, articles, book chapters, and paintings. Click here to learn more about indicating titles.

​

• Quotation marks are also used to for emphasis of word in handwriting. This emphases could be tonal (I didn't "say" that Bill kissed Susan) or could be on a single word used as a literal word (What did you think "surrender" meant, you spineless worm?). Not that I said handwriting: in typography, writers use italics for emphases instead of quotation marks.

How does one deal with other punctuation marks and quotation marks? Unless the quotation is inside an encloser, all punctuation goes inside the quotation marks (Doug said, "I think I'll give you a raise."). Look closely at the ."). of the last sentence: the period for the quoted green sentence is inside the quotation mark, but as the sentence is within a set of parentheses, the parenthesis and the period ending the full bold sentence are outside the quotation mark.