https://writing-6d6.pages.dev/tags/blog/ Recent content in Blog on Writing Hugo en-gb Sat, 24 Oct 2026 13:46:16 +0100 https://writing-6d6.pages.dev/posts/brackets/ Sat, 24 Oct 2026 13:46:16 +0100 https://writing-6d6.pages.dev/posts/brackets/ <p>If you have something to say, say it, and don&rsquo;t litter you text with brackets (there are caveats, of course<sup id="fnref:1"><a href="#fn:1" class="footnote-ref" role="doc-noteref">1</a></sup>). Brackets are a pet peeve of mine. They are often (nearly always) used to add an afterthought. Occasionally, you will see them being used to add (useless) supplementary information to a statement. Sometimes, the information isn&rsquo;t supplementary but you thought it was. Other times, the information (I received this as feedback on my thesis [dissertation], and it stuck with me. I&rsquo;d never considered the disruption brackets could bring to the flow of a sentence until it was pointed out to me. Prior to this advice, I would just use them without a second thought. You learn about them in school but nobody tells you about the negative impact they can have on your writing in the same way they don&rsquo;t tell you avoid exclamation marks. You think you are adding extra detail to a line of thought for free. But, sometimes, you do see things which could be an entire paragraph with a pair of brackets, and are you really suggesting that all of that text was pointless?) is completely out of place. Brackets give the author the luxury of not needing to think how to phrase something because it is not central to the point they are making, and this is at the expense of the reader(!).</p>