Parentheses, ( ), are used in pairs and are placed around additional or explanatory words or phrases within longer sentences:The young man (newly appointed as spokesperson for the organization) gave a report to the press.
The lion (once anesthetized by a marksman) turned out to have an infected paw. Parentheses can also enclose complete sentences or even paragraphs. The only material that should be placed within parentheses, however, is the kind of additional detail that could be omitted without changing the meaning or destroying the grammatical structure of the surrounding sentence or text.Material placed within parentheses typically includes items of explanatory or interpretative information, such as birth and death dates or the full version of an abbreviation:Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) was elected president in the year 1861.
1100 hours EST (eastern standard time). Parentheses are preferred to commas or dashes when the material concerned needs to be made distinct from the rest of the sentence. These cases include asides to the reader:The company's profit (with luck) should exceed $10 million. Note that material placed within parentheses does not usually start with a capital letter, and punctuation such as periods is not usually employed, though these rules do not hold true when the parentheses enclose a complete sentence. No change needs to be made to the punctuation of the surrounding sentence when parentheses material is interposed. Where parentheses clauses need to be inserted next to any existing punctuation, the material in parentheses should precede the punctuation already in use:This was bad news (though not unexpected), and worse was to come. There are a number of other uses to which parentheses may also be put: confirming a number in a contract—within 7 (seven) days—enclosing letters or numbers in a series—(1) or (a)—and encompassing possible alternatives—please return the enclosed form(s).Brackets, [ ], are placed around words or phrases furnishing additional explanatory information or editorial comments, often within other parenthetical material:The decisions to be made later that year (at the "Yalta meeting" [between Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill]) would affect the whole course of the war.
I first met Henry James when the author was about 50 years old [the author stayed at the house of James's neighbor for three weeks]. Brackets are also used for corrections to mistakes in an original text, either containing the correct version of what is given or else the word sic to indicate that the mistake exists in the original and that the writer is aware of it:He say [sic] trouble is bound to result from this betrayal by the colonial power.
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