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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