Punctuation Department · Today with The Mayor

Parentheses & Brackets

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Parentheses & Brackets

Tap an officer to meet them, then work through each one.

Set off an aside with parentheses

Parentheses enclose an aside or a clarification. The same nonrestrictive element could be set off by a pair of commas, by a pair of dashes, or by parentheses; the three differ in how loud they are, and parentheses are the quietest. (Chief Comma teaches the comma version; the Hyphen-Dash unit teaches dashes.)

In a sentence

The plan (if the weather holds) starts at noon.

Now you try

The part inside should lift right out. Like: My dog (a husky) loves snow.

Clarify inside a quotation with brackets

Use square brackets inside a quotation to add a clarification (such as who 'he' refers to) or a small correction. The brackets show the reader those words came from the writer, not the speaker. Court Reporter Quotation Marks supplies the quotation marks; the insertion is the brackets' job.

In a sentence

The witness said, “He [the suspect] ran.”

The note read, “They [the doctors] agreed.”

Now you try

The brackets hold words YOU add inside someone's quote. Like: She said, "He [my brother] left."

Whose words is it?

Parentheses enclose a nonrestrictive element the writer adds in their own sentence; square brackets enclose an editorial insertion inside a direct quotation. Both come in pairs and both set a part aside; the difference is whose words they sit in.

In a sentence

My coach (a former champion) is proud.

The report said, “They [the judges] agreed.”

Now you try

Parentheses hold your own aside; brackets hold a note inside someone else's quote.