Parentheses
The most common use of parentheses in academic writing is citing information
from external sources. A parenthetical usually comes at the end of the sentence
or right before a comma.
In this case, where the material within the parentheses isn’t a complete sentence, the
punctuation goes outside the parentheses.
In the novel Dare Me, the cheerleader Addy and her teammates practice every day,
pushing their bodies to their limits, because “we all want to ‘take it to the next
level’—that’s what we keep calling it” (Abbott 41).
Parentheses essentially make a little bubble to set information apart from the rest of the
sentence. They create a total separation between the larger sentence and the information
contained within them.
Parentheses signal that we’re meant to understand the sentence without the parenthetical
information, implying that the parenthetical is related but largely irrelevant to the meaning of the
sentence.
The oldest living creature ever recorded was an ocean quahog clam, which died in 2006
(although who knows how much longer it would have lived if the researchers hadn’t killed it
to nd out its age) after swimming o Iceland’s shore for ve hundred and seven years (see
Butler et al. (2013) for the original study).
It’s also possible to have a parenthetical that is its own sentence, not encased within a larger
sentence. In this case, it is punctuated like a full and independent sentence.
The Weasley twins were the only Harry Potter characters I ever really liked. (Fred was my
favorite.) So when George had to endure the pain of losing his twin brother and best friend at
the end of the series, I was devastated.
In academic writing, parenthetical sentences will probably look more like:
The history of the English language is long, complex, and fascinating. (Stephan Gramley’s
2012 book The History of English: An Introduction is an excellent chronological overview of the
development of English.)
In summary:
· If the parenthetical is part of a larger sentence, then the sentence housing the
parenthetical takes care of the punctuation—commas, periods, and anything else will go
outside the parentheses.
· If the parenthetical stands on its own as a sentence without being encased in any larger
sentence, then it is punctuated as its own entity—commas, periods, etc. will go inside the
parentheses.
Parentheses and Citaon
In academia, the most common parentheses use will of course be cing external sources. The main
citaon styles that rely heavily on parenthecal in-text citaons are MLA and APA.
MLA Citaon is normally used for English papers and related elds. Following outside material,
MLA requires a parenthecal citaon including the author’s name and a page number.
In Alice in Wonderland, Alice’s descent into her strange dream begins with her decision to
follow the White Rabbit down the rabbit hole, “never once considering how in the world she
was to get out again” (Carroll 3).
Note that the parenthecal falls outside the quotes, and that the period is outside the
parentheses.
APA Citaon is more oen used in the social sciences. It requires the year of publicaon to follow
the author’s name within your sentence, and it also involves the page number at the end of the
quote.
In his novel Alice in Wonderland, Carroll (1866) shows his character Alice, a young and
imaginave child, learning to believe in the unlikely when she thinks that “so many out-of-the-
way things had happened lately that Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were
really impossible” (p. 9).
Note that in APA, if the author isn’t menoned within your sentence, the whole citaon can come
in the ending parenthecal:
The character Alice, a young and imaginave child, learns to believe in the unlikely when she
thinks that “so many out-of-the-way things had happened lately that Alice had begun to think
that very few things indeed were really impossible” (Carroll, 1866, p. 9).
There is much more to MLA and APA citaon! This only covers in-text parenthecal citaons: for
more MLA and APA informaon, please look up sources specically on those.
