What is the difference between a comma and a parenthesis? Or better, when do we set off information with a pair of commas and when do we use parentheses instead? The answer will show us why we speak more often of the art, and not the science, of writing. The comma, of course, is one …
Tag Archives: Parentheses
Parentheses or Commas?
Let’s keep to the topic of punctuation and consider how parentheses differ from commas. In another post (Punctuating the Parentheses), we saw that parentheses enclose words that can be meant to stand with, but not directly on, the loadbearing grammatical foundation of a sentence. The parentheses in the sentence I just wrote, for example, created …
Punctuating the Parentheses
Think for a moment where we find ourselves when we want to explain something to someone else. If we set out to do this in writing, we are composing what is called expository prose, sentences and paragraphs designed to expound a subject cleanly and clearly to a particular reader for a particular purpose. A good …