The Canadian Style
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- - Close Punctuation
- Introduction to Punctuation
- Spacing
- The Period, Main purpose
- Imperatives, exclamations and indirect questions
- Ellipsis points
- Leaders
- Other uses
- Periods properly omitted
- The Question Mark, Main purpose
- Requests, indirect questions and other uses
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- The Colon, Miscellaneous
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- Use
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7.29 Parentheses, General
Parentheses, or round brackets, are used to enclose additional information serving to explain, amplify or provide comments on adjacent material. Commas and dashes are also used for this purpose (see 7.14 Restrictive/non-restrictive(c), 7.42 Interruptions, pauses, afterthoughts, clarifications and emphasis and 7.44 Material in apposition). Parentheses, however, are generally used for words that are less closely related to the rest of the sentence than material which would be set off by dashes or commas. They are also more convenient for parenthetic elements which run to some length or contain internal punctuation, although it is best to avoid lengthy parentheses wherever possible.
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