When should one use parentheses?
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- To mention independent elements
The number of customers is increasing everyday (see Table 6).
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- To write in-text citations
Willard and Foster (2019) describe
(Willard & Foster, 2019)
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- To introduce abbreviations
The United Nations (UN)
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- To separate items in a list of sentence and paragraphs
The most important things in life are (a) a good set of values, (b) family, (c) live in congruence to your potential.
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- For mathematical expression
(X-6)/(Y-3)
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- For statistical values that do not have parenthesis
No evidence against the null hypothesis (p> 0.10).
Exceptions
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- Use brackets to avoid nested parentheses
(United Nations [UN]; Mandela et al., 2011)
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- Instead of using back-to-back parentheses, separate them with a semicolon.
(e.g., rain; Khrushchev, 1990)
(e.g., rain) (Khrushchev, 1990)
(Adapted from APA, 2020, pp. 159-160)
Source
The American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association 7th edition.
