Do Now  Choose the correct pronoun: 1. Ralph and (he, him) drive motorcycles. 2. If they get in an accident, (they, them) could be very badly hurt.

Parentheses  …Are like a whisper…

Commas … are like a conversation…

Dashes …are like the yowl of a pirate!

Parentheses  You use them to surround something that seems a bit out of place in the sentence—an aside, a clarification, or a commentary.

Parentheses Here's an example of one way to use parentheses to add additional information: The 30th anniversary of the eruption of Mount St. Helens (May 18, 1980) brought back vivid memories of ash and darkness. Why wouldn’t we use dashes or commas here? The dateThe date (May 18, 1980) is in parentheses in that sentence. It's something you want to tell the reader, but it isn't a necessary part of the sentence. If you leave it out, the reader still gets the whole point you wanted to make about revived memories because of the anniversary.

The 30th anniversary of the eruption of Mount St. Helens (May 18, 1980) brought back vivid memories of ash and darkness.  The date isn't enough of a dramatic statement to merit dashes, and if you want to leave it in, another good reason to use parentheses is that the date already contains a comma between the day and the year, so to surround it with commas would make the sentence difficult to read. No excitement. Already has an internal comma. That leaves parentheses as the obvious choice.a comma

 Here's one that's a little different: I'm heading out (movie night!), but I'll call you in the morning.  "Movie night" is more of an aside or comment than a clarification. "Movie night" is so far removed from the flow of the sentence that you wouldn't want to use commas around it. You could use dashes. It doesn't seem like enough of an interruption or a dramatic statement to me to merit dashes, but it's a judgment call. You could write the sentence a different way, of course, "I'm heading out for movie night, but I'll call you in the morning," but it doesn't have the same friendly, happy feel. Parentheses seem right here. dashes

Dashes  If you want to hang a spotlight on your words, decorate them with dashes. You can use dashes the same way we just talked about using parentheses, to enclose fragments or whole sentences, but you'd better be sure your words are worthy of dashes. Dashes interrupt your sentence in a way that parentheses or commas don't.

 Here's an example: They fled through the woods, and then George— dear, sweet George the accountant—jumped out from behind a tree and stabbed them.  It's appropriate to interrupt that sentence with dashes to remind the reader that the attacker has unexpected qualities—that he's dear, sweet George the accountant.

 Another difference between parentheses and dashes is that you always have to use two parentheses, they always enclose something, but it's fine to use one dash alone to introduce an important or exciting statement, or a statement that already has commas in it. You could writecommas There was only one thing missing from the pirate ship—pirates.  You could also use a colon here, but –- let’s be honest-- a colon is boring compared to a dash.

Commas  They're kind of dull, which means you should always consider using them because punctuation usually shouldn't be drawing attention to itself. There are probably a hundred different rules that govern how to use commas, so I'm going to limit this discussion to commas that could be used like parentheses or dashes. how to use commas  Commas don't interrupt your sentence, so you use them when the words you're enclosing are a natural part of your sentence and not some comment from left field or flamboyant statement.

 Commas are generally used for appositives, for example, which are defining or clarifying statements after nouns. Here's an example of an appositive set off with commas: My youngest sister, Meghan, will be visiting soon.  "Meghan" just tells you who my youngest sister is. You could set her name off with dashes as we did in the earlier sentence about George the accountant, or with parentheses like we did with a date earlier, but there's no reason to in a sentence like this one.

Guided Practice 1. The mastodon an ancient ancestor of the modern elephant lived millions of years ago. 2. Sam’s shoe store at the Cherry Mall is having a storewide sale. 3. What we call classical Greece from the sixth to the fourth centuries BC) gave future civilizations more than just stories.

Exit Ticket  Use dashes or parentheses to enclose the extra information in the following sentences: 1. Gloria introduced us to Lily I think her last name is Nocholls at the party this weekend. 2. Paris often called the City of Lights is one of the world’s most popular tourist destinations. 3. Available to all residents, the library open every day except Monday offers a wealth of reading materials.