Do parentheses inhibit clarity?
I find it easier to write many things with parentheses, but I don't know if this is considered good practice. I would expect some might say that parentheses are indicative of excessive digression and that the sentences would be clearer if restructured.
Is there general consensus on the extent to rely on parentheses (e.g. "sparingly", or the same as with starting sentences with conjunction)? Do parentheses generally make writing more or less clear?
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Sparingly is good.
Most commonly, a pair of parentheses is useful to set off a strong or weak interruption, rather like a pair of dashes or a pair of bracketing commas.
As a rule we prefer parentheses, rather than dashes or bracketing commas, when the interruption is best regarded as a kind of "aside" from the writer to the reader.
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I like what Theodore Bernstein says in "The Careful Writer" (original copyright 1965):
There is some evidence that the use of parentheses has become more common in modern writing, particularly in critical and expository writing. Parentheses seem almost to have become a mark of "sophisticated," knowing style. They do have their uses in simplifying sentences that otherwise would be encumbered with ponderous subordinate and coordinate clauses and in permitting the use of pointed asides that might otherwise seem overemphatic. But, like every other stylistic device, they can be overdone.
Also, you should be able to lift out what is inside a set of parentheses and still have a grammatical, understandable sentence left behind. I personally think they are overused.
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Do parentheses inhibit clarity? They do and they don't, it's all down to individual use. When used well and skillfully, parentheses fulfill a function that no other punctuation or construction can quite imitate. Their function is similar to em dashes (a woefully overused punctuation mark) and can also be used to mask off digressions (which can detract from the text).
Overuse and use to mask bad habits have given parentheses a bad rep. Long parenthetical statements that don't flow well are a misuse. If the sentence or paragraph doesn't flow when reading it (because of the parenthetical statements) then you're not using them right. Maybe parentheses are the wrong tool in a case like this.
However, just because parentheses are misused often doesn't mean there aren't good ways to employ them. I wrote a longer blog post about this very subject, but here's the money quote in the article that illustrates the central point:
[General Washington] had not done well farming despite all sorts of theories about river mud being the best of manures (it is not), and the invention of a plough (shades of Jefferson!) which proved to be so heavy that two horses could not budge it even in moist earth.
(Gore Vidal, Burr, 1973)
See how well that flows? Dashes would introduce awkward pauses into the writing, rephrasing it entirely would remove the narrator's great sense of self-importance. This novel's narrator is opinionated and talky, but the author cleverly turns his asides into parenthetical ejaculations of color that don't interfere with the flow of the language.
Parentheses can be a useful tool in situations where writing the sentence without them would make the sentence longer, a maze of twisty corridors, or perhaps just drain it of life. Those who learn to use parentheses well have access to a wonderful tool.
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As with any technique, use it when it makes the text easier to understand, and don't overdo it (unless you're overdoing it deliberately as a stylistic choice, which should then be obvious).
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