ShmoopTube

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Parentheses, a la Shmoop. Every Thanksgiving, Jason's mom likes to

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slip a very special extra ingredient into her pumpkin pie.

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The ingredient isn't Ex-Lax...

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...or cayenne pepper. Nope. It's pecans. Yeah...a letdown, we know.

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In the world of grammar, those pecans are a lot like parenthetical elements.

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It's like this. No pumpkin pie needs pecans. They're just a little something special...

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...and it's the same way with parentheses and the words, or parenthetical elements,

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between them.

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When an author has something to say that doesn't need to be said...

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...when he or she wants to clarify something, or provide a sense of direction...

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...then it's time to bust out the parentheses.

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Say we have the sentence, "Jason's mom

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bought Cool Whip to go on her pumpkin pie."

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Okay. That's a nice, plain, serviceable sentence. But what if we want to liven it

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up a little bit?

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"Jason's mom bought Cool Whip...parenthesis... because there is no whip like Cool Whip...

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parenthesis...to go on her pumpkin pie."

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Here, the parenthetical elements don't just make the rewritten sentence more interesting.

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They provide us with important information...

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...namely, that Jason's mom has a deep and abiding love for Cool Whip. Mmm, Cool Whip.

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What if we have the sentence, "Jason hates that his mom puts pecans in the pumpkin pie"?

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Boring sentence, right? Bring on the parenthetical elements!

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"Jason...parenthesis...a pumpkin pie purist...parenthesis...hates that his mom puts pecans in the pumpkin pie."

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In this rewritten sentence, the words inside the parentheses give us crucial insight into

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why Jason hates those blasted pecans...

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...and, really, who can blame him? What kind of madwoman puts pecans in a pumpkin pie?

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When using parentheses, there are a few important rules to remember. If the words within the

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parentheses form a complete sentence...

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...the sentence's terminal punctuation stays within the parenthesis.

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If the words within the parentheses do not form a complete sentence...

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...and the parenthesis is at the end of a complete sentence...

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...then the sentence's terminal punctuation goes outside the parenthesis.

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Example time! Say we have two sentences, one of them falling between parentheses. The sentences

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would read like this...

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...Jason stole his mom's pecans so she couldn't put them in the pumpkin pie...period...parenthesis...He

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hid the pecans in the toilet tank... period... parenthesis.

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Now, let's combine these two sentences into one, placing the parenthetical elements at

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the end of the revised sentence.

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Jason stole his mom's pecans so she couldn't put them in the pumpkin pie...parenthesis...and

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hid them in the toilet tank...parenthesis...period. Okay, there's just one more rule to go over.

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If there's a complete sentence within parentheses...

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...and that complete sentence is within a complete sentence...

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...then the first letter of the parenthetical sentence does not get capitalized...

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...and the parenthetical sentence does not get terminal punctuation, unless a question

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mark or exclamation point is needed. Say we want to talk about how much Jason loves

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pumpkin pie. Let's look at a couple of different ways to write that sentence.

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We could write, "Jason adores...parenthesis...we mean he would kill for...parenthesis...pumpkin

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pie."

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Remember, here the first word in parentheses, "we", does not get capitalized.

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Here's another version of the same sentence: "Jason adores...parenthesis...should we

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say he would kill for...question mark...parenthesis...pumpkin pie."

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Again, the first word in parentheses—and this time it's the word "should"—

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does not get capitalized. Parentheses give us a chance to provide a

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little extra insight about what we're writing...

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...and to fret over punctuation placement, which we all love to do so dearly.

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At least we don't have to worry about finding pecans in our pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving...

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...or do we?

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