I'm finding a lot of questions and answers in general on SE are very liberal in using parenthesis to wrap secondary information within sentences which leads to broken flow and reduced readability.
I've been rewording a lot of these in my Writers review queue and it always seems possible to remove the parenthesis.
I've always felt they are mostly unnecessary and a result of not wording the sentence properly, or not splitting different points into separate sentences.
In this example, I have to pause the main sentence and read the secondary information, then remember what I was reading to finish it off.
I have recently started writing a chapter book ("a story book intended for intermediate readers, generally age 7-10", Wikipedia) but it is only 29 pages and I am nearing the end.
By rewording it to remove the parenthesis and separating the two parts of the original sentence, it reads without interruption and both points are stated clearly (the type of book and the user's conundrum).
I have recently started writing a chapter book, which is "a story book intended for intermediate readers generally between 7-10 years old". The book is only 29 pages long and I am nearing the end.
Am I mostly right in thinking that parentheses should be used sparingly and only when it doesn't break the flow of the sentence, such as how I used them above?
Or perhaps this version to keep the parentheses:
I have recently started writing a chapter book ("a story book intended for intermediate readers generally between 7-10 years old", Wikipedia). The book is only 29 pages long and I am nearing the end.
