Recently, I've been encountering a new way to format a parenthetical sentence. And I was following the book's explanation for this new structuring, till I found this (p. 76-77):
- Last year popular fiction accounted for half of all books purchased. (Business and self-help books were the second largest category.)
- Last year popular fiction accounted for half of all books purchased (business and self-help books were the second largest category).
From what I've read, it looks like the period would be on the inside of the parentheses if the sentence was "its own complete" sentence; otherwise, it would be outside. Yet, the only difference between the sentences is format, not content. Does this mean that the definition of "complete" sentences at some point becomes subjective and that subsequently the placement of parenthetical sentences also becomes subjective? Thanks :)
3 comments:
In both cases, you have two independent clauses:
1. Last year popular fiction accounted for half of all books purchased.
2. Business and self-help books were the second largest category.
They can be combined in different ways, depending on the author's preference and the structure of his or her paragraph. For example, in the first version, the parentheses could have been left out entirely. In the second, "purchased" could have been followed by a semicolon, and the parentheses omitted.
The variety of combinations doesn't mean that the definition of "complete" is "subjective." It simply means that the author has available to him or her different syntactical choices.
Is the use of parenthesis completely a matter of style then?
I also became aware of the parenthesis problem when we read the transcript of the public lecture given by Orhan Pamuk, which consistently uses hyphens except halfway through the second paragraph at the bottom of the first page.
Samantha, re the Pamuk speech: the hyphens were inserted by the author for pacing, and the parentheses to indicate a change in tone or pitch.
The author may use parentheses in the same way he or she uses colons, semicolons, and so forth.
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