Parenthetical Citation
• Reading to children on a daily basis greatly enhances their cognition skills (Smith 29).
• Jones (1999) indicates that there was a drastic increase in violent crime during the 1980s.

The parentheses in the examples above are used to indicate important information about sources.

Supplementary Material
• The most important thing to remember (for a college student, anyway) is that perseverance ultimately pays off.
• The Graduate Record Examination (GRE) is required for admission into most master’s programs.

The parentheses in the examples above are used to set off extra information that is not essential to the main idea of each sentence. In other words, the meaning of each sentence would not drastically change if the information in parenthesis were omitted.

Numerical Information
• The items on my grocery list include (1) bread, (2) milk, (3) eggs, and (4) celery.
• The cost for the concert ticket ($25) seems expensive to me.

The parentheses in the examples above are used to set off numerical information from the other information in each sentence.

Brackets
Brackets, the marks that look like this [ ], are also used to set off material that is not essential to grammatical meaning in a sentence. However, brackets are used in two ways that are different from the ways that parenthesis are used. Brackets are used (1) to set off interruptions in quoted material and (2) to indicate parentheses within parentheses.

Interruptions
• “He [Smith] said that it was his only chance to earn a decent living,” Johnson stated.
• Wentzel admitted, “When it [drinking] became a problem, I decided to get help.”

The brackets in the examples above are used to set off additional information that has been added to direct quotations. While the information in brackets may clarify the quotations, the brackets indicate that it is not part of the source’s original statement.

Parenthesis Substitute
• He (the director of the movie [Flying Kites]) suffered from serious depression during most of the filming.
 

The brackets above are used as a substitute for parentheses within parentheses since it would be quite awkward to place another set of parentheses within the set that is already there.

1. The Texas Education Agency TEA sets the dates for the TAKS exams.
2. I am going to purchase 1 stamps, 2 envelopes and 3 printer ink.
3. He (Paul Smith the restaurant owner) was forced to declare bankruptcy.
4. Jones 2004 stated that the United States is on the verge of facing a serious social security crisis.
5. Phillips retorted that he was “thinking about returning it (the dog) to the shelter.”

Answers
1. The Texas Education Agency (TEA) sets the dates for the TAKS exams.
2. I am going to purchase (1) stamps, (2) envelopes and (3) printer ink.
3. He (Paul Smith [the restaurant owner]) was forced to declare bankruptcy. OR
He (Paul Smith, the restaurant owner) was forced to declare bankruptcy.
4. Jones (2004) stated that the United States is on the verge of facing a serious social
security crisis.
5. Phillips retorted that he was “thinking about returning it [the dog] to the shelter.”

Grammatically Correct is a grammar tip of the week created by Academic Center Peer Writing Tutors at the University of Houston-Victoria in Victoria, Texas.

Comments about this newsletter should be directed to Summer Leibensperger, leibenspergers@uhv.edu.

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