Avoid parentheses and nested sentences

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Parenthetic remarks and subordinate clauses nested into a main clause make it difficult to understand a sentence. Readers must:

memorize the beginning of the sentence

read and mentally process the parentheses

recall the memorized beginning of the sentence and combine it with the rest of the sentence

 1  Avoid parentheses and nested sentences, regardless of whether you put them inside commas, dashes, or parentheses. If the parenthetical remark is actually important, create a separate sentence. If the parenthetical remark isn’t important, omit it.

 2  Parentheses are OK for:

introducing acronyms

adding units of measure

referring to numbered callouts in images

 3  If you have a good reason to use a nested sentence, watch the punctuation. Sometimes there are commas within one sentence that have different roles. For example, you may have a parenthetical remark that includes a comma-separated list. When two separate functions are nested inside of each other, replace one set of commas with semicolons, parentheses, or dashes.

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Examples    1 

No:

Many popular programs, for example, office suites, image editors, web browsers, and email clients, still come with poor documentation.

Yes:

Many popular programs still come with poor documentation. These include office suites, image editors, web browsers, and email clients.

Examples    2 

Yes:

Prefer direct current (DC) if you want to ….

Yes:

Enter the size (in mm).

Yes:

Use the emergency switch (1) only if ….

Examples    3 

No:

The names of user interface controls, such as menu items, tab cards, buttons, list boxes, etc., are printed in italics.

(Here, the outer commas are used for the parentheses; the inner commas are used for the list of interface controls. This isn’t wrong but makes the sentence difficult to read.)

Yes:

The names of user interface controls (such as menu items, tab cards, buttons, and list boxes) are printed in italics.

Top:

The names of user interface controls are printed in italics. Typical user interface controls are menu items, tab cards, buttons, and list boxes.

 


Make short sentences

Put the main thing into the main clause

that / which