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PARENTHESIS IN AN ESSAY
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN "PARENTHESIS" AND "PARENTHESES"? 

A parenthesis is just one tall curvy punctuation mark, like this   (    or this    )   
Two of these are considered plural. Refer to them as parentheses or a set (or pair) of parenthesis. 
​

WHEN DO AUTHOR NAMES GO IN THE PARENTHESES?

Provide only the page number if the author has been identified leading up to the quote. 
 
In Writing Logically, Thinking Critically, authors Sheila Cooper and Rosemary Patton offer obvious advice: “The informality encouraged by e-mail and text messaging requires us to carefully consider our audience” (12). 

  OR
 
“The informality encouraged by e-mail and text messaging requires us to carefully consider our audience” (Cooper and Patton 12). 
 
Notice that there is no comma between the last author's name and the page number.
And you are not expected to correct writing misdemeanors
, like the split infinitive (to carefully consider) in the quote above. 
You may correct issues that disrupt clarity as long as you use brackets around what is changed. 


WHAT ABOUT CO-AUTHORS? 

When quoting works with multiple authors, you may use all their last names or just the first one, followed by "et al."

"Et al." means "and others." The second word in this term is an abbreviation for "aliae." Always use a period to denote that abbreviation. If this abbreviation ends a sentence, one period serves to show both the abbreviation and the full-stop punction. 
Et al. is also an option in works cited citations. 

 
“The first step to any process begins even before the pen hits the page” (Stein, Forbyn, and Dotty 7). 

Notice that there are commas between the author names even before "and."  
Also notice that there is no comma between the author names and the page number.  


  OR 

“The first step to any process begins even before the pen hits the page” (Stein et al. 7) 

Notice that there are no commas in this parenthetical reference. 


WHAT IF AUTHORS HAVE THE SAME LAST NAME? 
 
If you include works by authors with the same last name, use the first initial for clarification. 
 
“Never under-estimate the power of silence” (A. Paulson 89). But also be sure to consider that the “whisper may occasionally speak more loudly than a scream” (P. Paulson 132). 

Notice that there is no comma between the author's name and the page number. 


WHAT IF THE SOURCE HAS NO AUTHOR?
​ 
If there is no author, use the title of the work, preferably abbreviated.
 
The Daily Breese article “Cheap Tricks Cost a Pretty Penny” (“CT”) offers a clever take on revenge. When prankster Patrick Dennison offers assistance to a stranger, he simply intended to impress and amuse his friends. The victim, however, “hit the jackpot” when a witness to this event turned out to be a “highly ambitious, top-notch” attorney, a “self-proclaimed ambulance chaser” (“CT” B3).

Notice that there is no comma between the abbreviation of the article title and the page number.