Parentheses () and Brackets [ ] in Academic Writing Done Right
“[…] this found in [11,24] drives me crazy […]” — it’s lazy academic writing!
Something that always annoys me as a reviewer is brackets — be they round or square. More specifically, it’s about in-text references in academic writing.
One example that gets me crazy is that it quite often occurs that I have to read in-text references as a reviewer as follows: “[…] XYZ can be found in (Martin, 2020)”. Sometimes I see things like the “[…] XYZ can be found in [1]” variant, which is very common too. Nevertheless, if the style guide allows, I would try to avoid it in academic writing. Because actually, it is crystal clear — it’s just basic grammar, which is the same for several languages.
Then, according to the Oxford Dictionaries, round brackets or parentheses “[…] are mainly used to separate off information that isn’t essential to the meaning of the rest of the sentence. If you removed the bracketed material, the sentence would still make perfectly good sense” [1].
So, it’s pretty simple, folks: Remove the brackets in your mind’s eye — does the sentence still make sense? If yes, that is perfect! So this is much better: “[…] XYZ can be found in Martin (2020) […]”. However, this is again not accurate in academic writing because you should consider a critical stance to particular writers. Therefore, I would try to avoid “in” phrases as a narrative in-text citation at all. To introduce a critical stance of particular writers, I recommend phrases containing “by” such as “[…] published article by Martin (2020) […]”. Further good examples would be:
- Research by Martin (2020) shows that […].
- Research by Martin [10] shows that […].
- Martin (2020) states that […].
- Martin [10] states that […].
- In 2020, Martin wrote, “[…]” (pp. 10–11).
It’s not that difficult to get it right — please try — the reviewers will thank you. Please have a look further at the Academic Phrasebank [2].
References/Links:
[1] Lexico.com. (2020). How to use parentheses and brackets | Lexico. Lexico Dictionaries | English. https://www.lexico.com/grammar/parentheses-and-brackets
[2] The University of Manchester. (2020). Being Critical. Academic Phrasebank. http://www.phrasebank.manchester.ac.uk/being-critical/
