Hello All, New to this site but have been writing for many years. I worked as a Journalist for about 12 of those years. Every new Journalist position I had I was always given the Style book to study. I cannot remember one particular structure that someone here can no doubt help me with. The placement of the comma when using an explanatory notation in parens. Should the comma be before the parens comment or after it? This? ...and as it was stated by Nick Vujicic, (no arms or legs) his approach to life... Or this? ...and as it was stated by Nick Vujicic (no arms or legs), his approach to life... Thanks. FC
arch... an end comma would not go inside parens for any reason, though the words within the parens may call for one somewhere other than at the end... banz... i can't think of a single instance where it would be correct to place a comma before parens,other than for lists... can you give us an example? the rule is: ...the only exception is:
Thanks Banzai, I read your reply the day you wrote it and decided to wait a little and mull it over. On the surface I can see the sense in what you say, but I cannot see much use of a parens notation preceding a statement. That does not seem to make sense to me unless it was worded clearly as in, (the following may be confusing) the comma comes after the closing parens. The "following" associates the notation with what is about to be read, but I could have just as easily left off the parens and made it all part of the sentence and thus wasted as a notation, which is mostly used to clarify a statement. Not saying you are incorrect, it is just that I cannot think of a time I have needed to use a preceding parens notation. Given that, I am still opting for the first example I set as being the only correct one. FC
imo the first one is incorrect and only the second one is correct... as i believe the rules i quoted bear out... commas go after parentheses, not before them, unless what precedes it is part of a series separated by commas, as shown in the example...
