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I have read the few questions about punctuations in parenthesis, but I think none of them answers my question. I've looked at:

If I have the following sentence structure (modified from one of the earlier question), is the following punctuation correct? Should I put the period within the parenthesis since it is a full sentence, or don't put it because it is still going on with the main sentence?

This morning I was distracted by a plane (or was it Superman? I'm not very sure.), so I tripped.

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    You could use dashes... —
    – Mariano Suárez-Álvarez
    Jun 25, 2012 at 4:56
  • If I had to do it at all, I'd do it the way you have punctuated it.
    – Barrie England
    Jun 25, 2012 at 5:55
  • In this example, I'd at least consider editing out the "I'm not very sure" part. Doesn't the question mark infer that? "This morning I was distracted by a plane (or was it Superman?), so I tripped." (That might fix this instance of the problem; however, I realize it doesn't answer your general question.) P.S. +1 for doing the research first, and then providing the three links to questions that come close to addressing this issue.
    – J.R.
    Jun 25, 2012 at 9:44
  • You have four possibilities '.),' or '),' or '.)' or ')' — the first is ugly, while the second and fourth leave the sentence inside the parenthesis with no ending punctuation, so I'd choose the third as the least unacceptable alternative.
    – Peter Shor
    Jun 25, 2012 at 12:24

1 Answer 1

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I would punctuate around parentheses the same way as dashes.

With dashes, the sentence would look like this:

This morning I was distracted by a plane — or was it Superman? I'm not very sure — so I tripped.

Therefore, with parentheses it would be:

This morning I was distracted by a plane (or was it Superman? I'm not very sure) so I tripped.

That said, I prefer dashes here, because the middle phrase clearly relates to the topic of the sentence. Parentheses are better reserved for signaling a stronger digression from the main topic, e.g. —

This morning I was distracted by a plane (they're built in a factory the next town over) so I tripped.

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  • Interesting, no one brought up using dash in that earlier question. So is it also better to have I was distracted by a plane - or was it Superman? instead of I was distracted by a plane (or was it Superman?). But I think the meaning is a bit different here? I feel using dash put a lot more emphasis on the question
    – ananda
    Jun 25, 2012 at 6:38

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