124 English Grammar Demystifi ed
Use parentheses to enclose letters or numbers that mark items in a list:
The chapters include (1) Birth to Six Months Old, (2) Six to 18 Months Old,
(3) etc.Note that parentheses do not change the fi nal punctuation in a sentence:
The movie was written by Harvey Allen (1934–1998).Of course, when the parentheses hold a complete sentence, the punctuation goes
inside the parentheses:
The movie was written by Harvey Allen. (He was born in 1934.)Use brackets within parentheses and within a quotation for clarity. For example:
We traveled in Europe (Italy [Florence and Rome], Belgium, and England).Arben said, “We read famous short stories aloud [Poe and O. Henry] just for
the fun of it.”Written Practice 5-12
In each of the following sentences, insert or delete the dash, parentheses, or
brackets as needed.
- Winter has arrived can you feel it in your mood? and we really need to fi nd
a sunny place for our vacation. - We bought new clothes slacks, shirts, underwear, shoes when the airline lost
our clothes. - Tracy told me, “Toby is on a buying trip for her store California,
Washington, and Arizona and won’t return until Monday.” - Toby is on a buying trip for her store California, wines, Washington, apples,
and Arizona, jicama and won’t return until Monday. - Choose a restaurant you know what she likes and we’ll take her out for
dinner.