Parenthesis is adding extra information to a sentence using brackets, dashes or commas.
This technique should be familiar to you as you will have studied it at 3rd level. Use this guide to revise and check your understanding.
Parenthesis
Adding extra information to a sentence (or paragraph) using brackets, dashes or commas.
If you take it out again, the passage should still make grammatical sense.
"The case was worn - and very full - and its straps struggled to keep in its contents.”
Most of the time, parenthesis is tucked into a sentence, but a parenthesis can also be its own sentence as part of a paragraph.
She opened the envelope, carefully sliding the paper out.
(She hadn’t received a handwritten letter in years).
You don’t need to read the parenthesis for this to make sense, but it does give you more detail.
Parenthesis can help us better understand things like setting, or aspects of a character, like their emotions, motivations or background.
It can almost feel like the writer is whispering a secret in your ear.
Liz Lochhead’s poem 'The Bargain' uses parenthesis to describe a character at the Barras market in Glasgow:
“nothing to sell, but three bent forks a torn, calendar (last year’s) and a broken plastic sandal.”
The person has nothing of value to offer, and the parenthesis reinforces this idea.
It’s bad enough that the calendar is torn, but the parenthesis makes it clear just how pitiful and worthless it is, by telling us it’s out of date too.
If your writing makes sense, but you want to add more info, try sticking in a parenthesis.
(You can really build on your ideas!)
Parenthesis adds extra information to a sentence or a paragraph but the passage should still make sense without it.
This can be done using:
- brackets
- dashes
- commas
For example: 'The case was worn - and very full - and its straps struggled to keep in its contents.'
Here's another example
Without brackets: 'James was taking part in a charity skydive at the weekend.'
With brackets: 'James (who was terrified of heights) was taking part in a charity skydive at the weekend.'
The sentence still makes sense without the words inside the brackets, it's just a bit more interesting with the added detail.
Poetry
Liz Lochhead's poem The Bargain uses parenthesis to describe a character at the Barras market in Glasgow: 'nothing to sell / but three bent forks a torn / calendar (last year's) / and a broken plastic sandal.'
The person has nothing of value to offer at the market and the parenthesis (in brackets) reinforces this idea. It's bad enough that the calendar is torn but the parenthesis tells us it's also out-of-date making it even more worthless.
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