When to Use Parentheses

Parentheses and additional information for context

Use parentheses to provide additional information or context that is separate from a sentence’s main idea.

• Example: Godzilla is a giant monster (known in Japan as a kaiju) made famous by the 1954 Japanese film of the same name.

Use parentheses to provide contextual information, such as the years a historical person was alive.

• Example: Georgia Hamilton (1903-2001) was born on a rural farm and witnessed tremendous technological changes over her lifetime.

Parentheses for in-text citations

Use parentheses at the end of a sentence to provide an in-text citation.

• Example: In the opening line of Moby Dick, Ishmael says, “Call me Ishmael” (Melville 1).

How to Use Brackets

Brackets and parentheses

Use brackets to avoid placing parentheses inside parentheses.

• Example: The members of the Koreshan Unity (established by Cyrus Teed [1839-1908] as a utopian community) believed that the Earth was surrounded by a giant, hollow sphere.

Brackets and changes made to quotes

Use brackets to indicate when you have changed the exact words in an author’s quote.

• Example: "In anticipation of an attack, he [Julius Caesar] ordered his men to guard the city gates."

Brackets and ellipses

If you are quoting material that already has an ellipsis in the text, then any ellipses you add to the quote should be placed in brackets.

• Original text: Fred sat thoughtfully for a while before saying, “I don’t know why …. But I have a feeling, a very certain and unshakable feeling, that you and I are about to become best friends.”
• Correct: Early in the novel, the protagonist says, “I don’t know why …. But I have a feeling [. . .] that you and I are about to become best friends.”

[sic]

The word sic comes from the Latin phrase sic erat scriptum, which means “thus was it written.” It is used to show that an error in a quote is not your mistake and was present in the original text.

Use [sic] to indicate when you are providing a quote that has an error in it.

• Example: An angry Twitter user told me to “keep my dogg [sic] on a shorter leash.”

How to Use Slashes

Slashes to indicate or

Use slashes instead of the word or.

• Example: If or when Chet comes home, he’s going to be grounded for life.
• Example: If/when Chet comes home, he’s going to be grounded for life.

Slashes and quoting poetry

Use slashes with a space on either side to separate quoted lines of poetry.

• Example: In Sonnet 43, Elizabeth Barrett Browning writes, “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. / I love thee with the depth and breadth and height / My soul can reach…”

Slashes and opposing pairs

Use slashes when discussing nouns that operate as opposing pairs.

• Example: In the film Blade Runner, the authentic/fake binary is explored by following the lives of androids.

When opposing pairs are used as a compound adjective, use hyphens rather than slashes.

• Example: The nature-nurture debate is an active topic in science.

How to Use Hyphens (-), En Dashes (–), and Em Dashes (—)

In this section, we will be discussing the hyphen, the en dash, and the em dash. Most writers recognize the hyphen, but not everyone is familiar with the en dash or em dash. These are known as special characters because they do not appear on most standard keyboards.

You may come across en dashes and em dashes in academic and professional writing, and at some point, you may be required to use them. This section will discuss these special characters and provide instruction on how to type them in both Microsoft and Apple products.

How to type en dashes and em dashes

En dashes and em dashes are considered special characters, so they do not appear on a standard keyboard. Many word processors, like Microsoft Word, will automatically detect when two hyphens (--) are used without spaces to connect two words and will attempt to convert them to the correct dash character. There are also shortcuts that can be used to insert dashes.

• En dash:
  • Mac shortcut: Option + Hyphen (-)
  • Windows shortcut: Alt + 0150 on numpad
  • Microsoft Word shortcut: Alt + Hyphen (-) on number pad
• Em dash:
  • Mac shortcut: Shift + Option + Hyphen (-)
  • Windows shortcut: Alt + 0151 on numpad
  • Microsoft Word shortcut: Ctrl + Alt + Hyphen (-) on number pad

Hyphens (-)

Hyphens are used in coequal nouns, compound adjectives, and some compound nouns. They are also used to hyphenate compound words together when a prefix or suffix is added.

Hyphens in coequal nouns
When describing someone or something with multiple nouns, if the nouns are of equal importance, they may be presented as coequal nouns by connecting the nouns with hyphens.

Here are examples of coequal nouns:

• Example: Taylor Swift is a singer and songwriter.
• Example: Taylor Swift is a singer-songwriter.
• Example: Jack has a career as an animator, illustrator, and videographer.
• Example: Jack has a career as an animator-illustrator-videographer.

Hyphens in compound adjectives

A compound adjective is a single adjective that is made of multiple words.

Here are examples of compound adjectives.

• Example: He is a world-class violinist.
• Example: I took a fast-acting painkiller.

Hyphens in compound nouns

A compound noun is a noun that is made of multiple words. Some compound nouns, like ice cream, do not require hyphens, while others do.

Here are examples of compound nouns that require hyphens.

• Example: I am so glad that I actually like my mother-in-law.
• Example: Julie and Sarah were runners-up in the contest.
• Example: The museum called the police once they found out about the break-in.

Hyphenating compound words when adding a prefix or suffix

When a prefix or suffix is added to a compound noun or compound adjective, the word group should be hyphenated for clarity. This is true even if the compound words are not normally connected by a hyphen.

Consider the compound noun fine arts, which is usually not hyphenated. If the suffix -based is added, then fine arts becomes fine-arts-based. This is done to clarify that the suffix -based is modifying the fine arts, not just arts.

• Example: She attended the art school for its fine-arts-based curriculum.
• Example: She attended the art school for its curriculum, which was based in the fine arts.
   

• Example: She attended the art school for its fine arts-based curriculum.
• Example: She attended the art school for its arts-based curriculum, which she thought was fine, but nothing special.

Note: In handwritten or typewriter-written documents, a hyphen is often used at the end of a line of text to continue a word on to the next line. This practice is generally not followed for contemporary academic writing.

En Dashes (–)

The en dash is used instead of a hyphen when connecting a prefix or a suffix to a proper noun that is more than one word. When using an en dash to connect a prefix or a suffix to a word, do not put any spaces before or after the en dash.

• Example: The movie starred an Academy Award–winning actor.

Em Dashes (—)

The em dash is used when an idea is being interrupted, when clarification is needed, when elaboration is needed, or when items are being listed in a sentence. The em dash should be used sparingly in your writing.

Em dashes for interruptions:

Use em dashes when you are interrupting the main idea of a sentence. If the interruption occurs at the end of the sentence, use a single em dash. If the interruption occurs in the middle of a sentence, put em dashes before and after the interruption. Do not put spaces before or after an em dash.

• Example: I want to be a landscape photographer and have my work featured on the cover of National Geographic—even though my parents want me to go to medical school.
• Example: My brother—who got his medical degree as a foot doctor—told me to pursue my dreams.

Em dashes for clarification:

Use em dashes to clarify meaning when commas would be too ambiguous.

• Example: Shakespeare never reveals if the symptoms of Hamlet’s madness—paranoia, violence, and visions—are the real thing or a trick he’s pulling on the court.

Consider if the sentence were written only using commas:

• Example: Shakespeare never reveals if the symptoms of Hamlet’s madness, paranoia, violence, and visions are the real thing or a trick he’s pulling on the court.

Without em dashes, the meaning of the sentence is more grammatically ambiguous. When only using commas, the word madness could be part of the list rather than the category under which the other words are listed.

Em dashes for elaboration:

Use em dashes when elaborating on an idea with words like for example or namely.

• Example: The restaurant offered specialty burgers based on world cuisines—for example, a Korean kimchi burger.
• Example: The bowl of spaghetti was knocked all over the kitchen floor. The principal offender—namely, Mister Fluffers—was my roommate’s adopted cat.

Em dashes for lists:

Em dashes can be used for lists instead of colons.

• Example: The soft-serve ice cream stand offered all the usual flavors—vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, and swirl.

How to Use Italics

Italics and underlining are considered identical in many style guidelines, and different publication styles have different preferences on which to use. Do not underline in MLA style.

Italics for long, published works

Use italics for names of long, published works such as magazines, journals, newspapers, and websites.

• Example: Scientific American (magazine)
• Example: Academic Search Complete (database)
• Example: Tampa Bay Times (newspaper)
• Example: Ask.com (website)

Italics for artwork and vessels

Use italics for names of artwork and names of ships and aircraft.

• Example: Mona Lisa
• Example: USS Enterprise
• Example: Enola Gay

Italics for special uses of words and letters

Use italics for words and letters used as words and letters.

• Example: She learned her ABCs.
• Example: My phone number has a lot of fours in it.

Use italics when referring to a word, especially when introducing or defining it as a term.

• Example: The word truthiness was coined by Stephen Colbert.
• Example: Macbeth’s tragic flaw, or hamartia, is his political ambition.

Use italics for a foreign word; use quotation marks for its translation.

• Example: The Russian word krasnaya can mean either “red” or “beautiful.”
• Example: Mano-a-mano is a Spanish term meaning “hand to hand.”

Since so many foreign words have been incorporated into English and are now considered English words, there is not always a clear distinction between an English word and a foreign word. A dictionary will often note if an entry is considered a foreign term by including descriptions like “a French phrase.”

Italics should not be used to convey emphasis in academic writing.

How to Use an Ellipses

An ellipsis (plural ellipses) is used to show that words have been omitted within a quote. An ellipsis signals to the reader that your usage of a quote alters it from its original form or context. In MLA style, an ellipsis consists of three spaced periods.

An ellipsis is not needed when quoting a word or a phrase, as readers generally understand that these are not the full original text.

• Original text: The inner machinations of my mind are an enigma.
• Correct: In the SpongeBob SquarePants episode “The Secret Box,” Patrick Star states that the operations of his mind “are an enigma.”
• Incorrect: In the SpongeBob SquarePants episode “The Secret Box,” Patrick Star states that the operations of his mind “. . . are an enigma.”

Ellipses in the middle of quotes

Use an ellipsis if you are omitting material from within a single sentence of your quote.

• Original text: One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by arches into stiff sections. The bedding was hardly able to cover it and seemed ready to slide off any moment. His many legs, pitifully thin compared with the size of the rest of him, waved about helplessly as he looked.
• Example: Franz Kafka’s story The Metamorphosis begins by stating that “Gregor Samsa . . . found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin” (1).

If your quote omits an entire sentence or more, use an ellipsis, but add a period before it.

• Example: Franz Kafka’s story The Metamorphosis begins by stating, “One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. . . . His many legs, pitifully thin compared with the size of the rest of him, waved about helplessly as he looked” (1).

Ellipses at the end of quotes

If your quoted material appears to be a grammatically complete sentence, use an ellipsis to signal to the reader that there was more to the original text.

If an in-text citation comes directly after an ellipsis at the end of your quote, then include an ellipsis before the closing quotation mark and place a period at the end of the in-text citation.

• Original text: The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes “Awww!”
• Example: In On the Road, Jack Kerouac writes, “The only people for me are the mad ones . . .” (25).

If an in-text citation does not come directly after the ellipsis at the end of your quote, add a period before the ellipsis.

• Example: On page 25 of On the Road, Jack Kerouac writes, “The only people for me are the mad ones. . . .”
• Example: In On the Road, Jack Kerouac writes, “The only people for me are the mad ones. . . .” He goes on to describe how these people “burn” like fireworks (25).