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Parenthesis is adding extra information to a sentence using brackets, dashes or commas.

This technique should be familiar to you as you will have studied it at 3rd level. Use this guide to revise and check your understanding.

Parenthesis adds extra information to a sentence or a paragraph but the passage should still make sense without it.

This can be done using:

• brackets
• dashes
• commas

For example: 'The case was worn - and very full - and its straps struggled to keep in its contents.'

Here's another example

Without brackets: 'James was taking part in a charity skydive at the weekend.'

With brackets: 'James (who was terrified of heights) was taking part in a charity skydive at the weekend.'

The sentence still makes sense without the words inside the brackets, it's just a bit more interesting with the added detail.

Poetry

Liz Lochhead's poem The Bargain uses parenthesis to describe a character at the Barras market in Glasgow: 'nothing to sell / but three bent forks a torn / calendar (last year's) / and a broken plastic sandal.'

The person has nothing of value to offer at the market and the parenthesis (in brackets) reinforces this idea. It's bad enough that the calendar is torn but the parenthesis tells us it's also out-of-date making it even more worthless.