Lesson video

Hi, I'm Mr. Buckingham, and it's so lovely to have you with me today for our lesson on parenthesis.

Now we're going to learn a brilliant way to improve our writing in this lesson, and I'm good to be here to help you the whole way through.

Let's make a start.

Today's lesson is called "Parenthesis: Brackets, Dashes and Commas," and it comes from my unit called "Key Terminology," including determiners, adverbials, and parenthesis.

By end today's lesson, we'll be able to choose when to use brackets, dashes, or commas for the most effective parenthesis.

Now, parenthesis is a fantastic way of adding little extra details into our sentences, and there are several different ways to do it, and we're gonna talk about each of those today.

And I really hope that after this lesson you'll feel really confident in adding a little bit of parenthesis to some of your sentences just to give your reader those extra little pieces of information or excitement that they'd really like to see.

Let's make a step.

Here are our keywords for today's lesson.

My turn, your turn, parenthesis, brackets, dashes, clause, and phrase.

Well done.

Now, parenthesis is additional information that's added to a sentence.

If it's removed, the sentence still makes sense.

Brackets are a punctuation mark that can be used to add extra factual information in a clause.

And dashes are a punctuation mark used to add extra information in a clause for dramatic effect.

A phrase is a group of words with no verb, and a clause is a group of words that contains a verb.

Let's look at our lesson outline.

We're going to start off by looking at how we use brackets and dashes for parenthesis.

Then we'll move on to looking at how we use commas for parenthesis, and then we'll select the appropriate punctuation for different types of parenthesis.

Now, in nonfiction writing, we can add extra factual information to a sentence using a pair of bracket.

Here are some examples.

Lake Baikal, the deepest on Earth at 1,642 metres, is located in Russia.

Elizabeth II, 1926 to 2022, was queen for over 70 years.

And the extra factual information inside the brackets here is a type of parenthesis.

It's extra details that are added inside a sentence.

And remember that keyword, extra.

When we use brackets, the punctuation comes directly after the noun or the noun phrase it gives us the extra factual information about.

So in the first sentence, the parenthesis, the deepest on Earth at 1,642 metres, is added directly after the noun phrase, Lake Baikal, which is what it gives more extra information about.

And in this case, 1926 to 2022, inside the bracket is parenthesis giving us extra factual information about Elizabeth II, the noun phrase there.

Now remember we said parenthesis is extra information, so if we remove the parenthesis, the sentence would still make complete sense.

I'm gonna show you some good and bad examples.

Here they are.

Let's look at the first one.

It says, Loch Morar, the UK's deepest lake, reaches 310 metres in depth.

So let's remove that parenthesis.

Now it says, Loch Morar reaches 310 metres in depth.

That makes sense.

That parenthesis has worked in that sentence.

Let's try the second one.

Somerset, a county in southwest England is, home to cheddar cheese.

If I remove that parenthesis, the sentence says, Somerset home to cheddar cheese.

That is not a complete sentence, so that parenthesis has not worked.

Instead, it should look like this.

Somerset, a county in southwest England, is home to cheddar cheese.

Now if I remove that parenthesis, it says, Somerset is home to cheddar cheese, and that works.

So the parenthesis is extra factual information.

It is not essential to the sentences.

We're just giving our reader a little extra something that they might be interested in.

And when we use brackets, this parenthesis is always a phrase.

It contains no verb.

It could even in fact be a group of numbers like we saw with Elizabeth II in the previous page.

So here, the UK's deepest lake and a county in southwest England are both phrases.

They do not contain a verb, so they cannot be clauses.

So, which sentences here have the parenthesis written correctly? Remember, if you remove the parenthesis, the sentence should still make complete sentence.

Pause the video and see if you can work it out.

Okay, let's have a look.

In the first one, we've got Colchester, a city in Essex, has a history dating back to the Roman occupation of Britain.

If I remove that parenthesis, it still makes sense.

Colchester has a history dating back to the Roman occupation of Britain.

That one works.

What if I remove the second parenthesis? Now it says the M6 the longest motorway in the UK.

That one does not work.

The parenthesis cannot have been written correctly.

And C, let's try and remove that parenthesis.

The bee hummingbird is the world's smallest living bird.

So that works.

So if you spotted those two that work, really good job.

Now, let's say we have a sentence which isn't punctuated yet.

If we can identify the part of the sentence that would be a complete sentence on its own, we can then find the parenthesis.

Let me show you.

Here's a sentence which isn't punctuated yet.

English with 2 billion speakers is the world's most-spoken language.

Here, this section is the main clause.

It would make sense on its own, it would say, English is the world's most-spoken language.

So this part could be removed, couldn't it? With 2 billion speakers, it's not essential to that main clause, not essential to the sentence.

It's an extra phrase about English.

So that's the part we could put inside the brackets as parenthesis.

English with 2 billion speakers is the world's most-spoken language.

So where should the parenthesis be shown using brackets in these nonfiction sentences? Pause the video and have a think.

Okay, let's have a look.

In A, we could put this section inside brackets and the sentence will still make sense.

It would say, Noah was the most common boys' name chosen for babies in 2021.

In B, we could remove this section in the brackets and the sentence would say, Denali is the tallest mountain peak in North America.

That makes sense.

In C, we could put this section in brackets and the sentence would say, the Tyne is around 73 miles long.

So here we know these parentheses have worked because they're extra information that could be removed and the sentence would still make sense.

And these pieces of parenthesis are phrases, they don't contain verbs, and they come after a noun or a noun phrase to tell us extra factual information about it.

Really good job if you got those brackets in the right place.

Now, we've talked about nonfiction writing where we've used brackets to show extra factual information.

In fiction writing, we can use a pair of dashes to add extra details that heighten or raise the emotion that the reader was already feeling.

Let me show you an example.

We've got here three sentences which already show quite strong feelings.

Pushing open the door, we crept into the empty house.

Sounds a bit creepy.

The darkness made it impossible to see where we were going.

Also kind of scary or threatening.

All of a sudden, a whisper echoed through the dusty corridors.

Even more scary feeling there from that sentence.

So we've already got a strong emotion here going on, the fear and threat and anxiety, but we can add some parenthesis using dashes to heighten that feeling, to increase that feeling.

Let me show you.

We could say, pushing open the door, we crept - pulses racing - into the empty house.

Hmm, we've made that feeling of threat and fear even stronger.

I'll share you another one.

The darkness - deep and all-consuming - made it impossible to see where we were going.

So that feeling of being lost is being added to there by making the darkness sound even deeper, even darker.

And in the third one, we could say, all of a sudden, a whisper - soft as air - echoed through the dusty corridors.

So making that whisper sound almost even more creepy and as if this house is incredibly silent and the whisper is audible even though it's so gentle, which really adds to that feeling of threat and fear.

So here we've added, using dashes, some extra detail that raises that emotion.

So this is another form of parenthesis.

It's extra information added to a sentence that could be removed.

And when we're using dashes, we're adding details that add a dramatic effect that make us feel that feeling more strongly.

So we tend to use dashes to shape parenthesis in fiction text to make intense feelings and strong descriptions even stronger.

So, let's look at our little spectrum here to help us.

We've got the blue end where we're using mild feelings and mild descriptions, things which are felt a little or seen a little.

And then at the red end we've got descriptions and emotions which are intense.

They're felt a lot.

They're felt strongly.

They're seen strongly.

So we could start with a sentence like this.

A sound issue from the trees on my left.

It sounds like maybe I'm walking through a forest at night and it's getting a little bit creepy.

So I'm feeling some fear.

So I'd be in the orange and yellow section of my spectrum here.

But then if I add some parenthesis using dashes, I could say, a sound - deep and moaning - issued from the trees on my left.

And suddenly that sounds much more intense, much more scary.

So now I'm moving to intense fear at the red end of my spectrum.

So adding that parenthesis has heightened that emotion of fear.

Here's another example using a description instead of an emotion.

The sun's heat blazed down on our parched skin.

What this is showing is heat, isn't it? And it's showing us quite a strong feeling of heat already.

Let's make it even more intense with some parenthesis in dashes.

I could say, the sun's heat blazed down - hot as magma - on our parched skin.

So I'm making that sound like intense heat now, and I've pushed the description towards that red intense end of the spectrum using that parenthesis, hot as magma, to make the heat sound even more intense.

So we have three sentences here that use parenthesis in dashes.

First of all, try reading each of them without the parenthesis to see if they make sense.

Pause the video and do that now.

Well, hopefully you saw that if we remove those pieces of parenthesis, these sentences would still make sense.

For instance, A would say, the storm roared, and it flung itself at the swaying trees.

That works perfectly, and that's the case for all three here.

Now I'd like you to try and match each sentence to the idea that the parenthesis is trying to heighten for dramatic effect.

So the sentence without the parenthesis already had a strong feeling, but what is the feeling we've tried to heighten by adding that parenthesis inside the dashes? Pause the video and see if you can match them up.

Okay, let's take a look.

A, the storm roared - fierce as a lion - and it flung itself at the swaying trees, is showing us the strength of that storm.

We're trying to heighten it by saying that strength is as fierce as a lion.

B says, Sam raised her hand - slowly and cautiously - and she stuttered out a reply.

This is clearly showing Sam's nervousness, and that parenthesis, slowly and cautiously, is heightening the feeling of nervousness that we're trying to show that Sam is having.

So C must be trying to show the emptiness of this ocean.

The ship bobbed - completely alone - on the wide, empty ocean.

So that parenthesis, completely alone, heightens that feeling of loneliness that the ship is experiencing in the vast, empty ocean.

Really good job for matching those up.

So let's imagine we have a sentence which isn't punctuated yet.

If you want to know where to place those dashes around a piece of parenthesis in our fiction writing, we've got to identify the part of the sentence that could be removed, because that must be the parenthesis.

So for example, here's a sentence which isn't punctuated yet.

The moon ghostly and pale cast an eerie glow on the empty cemetery.

Now I bet you spotted we could remove these words, ghostly and pale.

Then the sentence would read, the moon cast an eerie glow on the empty symmetry, which works.

So that must be our parenthesis.

Let's put it inside dashes.

Now it says the moon ghostly and pale cast an eerie glow on the empty cemetery.

So in that case, ghostly and pale are both adjectives, aren't they? But when we use dashes to show parenthesis like this, we can actually include verbs in the parenthesis as well.

So for example, the howling wind forced me - stumbling and staggering - to the edge of the high cliff.

So we saw with brackets, we only ever use phrases, so no verbs can be used there.

But when we use dashes, we're allowed to use verbs here and we can have a clause, stumbling and staggering, including verbs as well inside our parenthesis.

So where should the parenthesis be shown using dashes in these sentences? Pause the video and see if you can work it out.

Okay, let's have a look.

In A, we would say, we paced - hearts pounding - through the dark trees, because the sentence would then read on either side of the parenthesis, we paced through the dark trees, which works.

For B, you could say, the hail fell - hard as nails - against the soft, bare skin of our faces.

The sentence on either side is, the hail fell against the soft, bare skin of our faces, which works.

For C, we would say, the children - numb with cold - huddled together and they prayed that someone would come soon.

On either side we would have, the children huddled together and they prayed that someone would come soon.

Really good job if you've got that piece of parenthesis surrounded by your dashes in the right place.

So we've seen that brackets and dashes can both be used to show parenthesis, but we use them for different purposes.

So we've shown that brackets are used in nonfiction text to add extra factual information after a noun or a noun phrase.

So for instance, Mount Everest, a mountain in Nepal, is the tallest mountain in the world.

And we've seen that dashes are used in fiction text to add dramatic effect by heightening or strengthening an emotion further that the reader was already feeling.

So for example, a vast mounting - piercing the very clouds - loomed over us like a terrible shadow.

So that's heightening the feeling of kind of fear that this mountain is so huge and so towering above us.

So here's another example of brackets to add factual information.

The prime minister, the leader of the government, lives at 10 Downing Street.

Let's make that into a fiction sentence using dashes for parenthesis.

We could say, the prime minister - eyes wide with distress - heard the awful news and silence.

So we can tell the prime minister was upset.

We've used the parenthesis inside dashes to heighten that feeling of distress that he had.

So which of these are true for parenthesis with both brackets and dashes? Pause the video and tick all the statements which are true for both types of parenthesis we've seen.

Okay, let's take a look.

A says that we could remove that parenthesis and the sentence would still make sense.

That is true for both.

B says, the parenthesis is used to heighten a feeling for dramatic effect.

Well, that's just for dashes in a fiction writing, isn't it? And C says the parenthesis has to be factual information.

Well, that's just true for brackets in nonfiction writing.

D says the parenthesis is surrounded by a pair of punctuation marks.

That is true, isn't it? Either a pair of dashes or a pair of brackets in each case.

Well done if you got this.

So let's do our first task for this lesson.

I'd like you to rewrite each sentence I'm going to show you, showing where the parenthesis is using either brackets or dashes as appropriate.

So remember, if it's factual information, a phrase, it will be brackets in a nonfiction sentence.

If it's a fiction sentence where we're heightening an emotion for our reader or a description for our reader, we're going to use dashes to show that parenthesis.

Here are your sentences.

Pause the video and see if you can add in the correct punctuation each time.

Okay, let's take a look at each sentence with the parenthesis shown using either dashes or brackets.

A says, I swam - splattering and coughing - through the icy water, flailing my arms wildly left and right.

That's a fiction sentence.

We are heightening that feeling of struggle that the person is experiencing.

B is a nonfiction sentence.

Athelstan, 894 to 939 AD, was the first king of England, but he never ruled over Scotland or Wales.

That's come after the noun Athelstan 'cause it tells us more about Athelstan.

C says, the hawk - eyes fixed in its target - swooped from the sky and it reached out its sharp talons.

Again, this must be fiction writing.

We're heightening that feeling about the hawk, a description about the hawk, that the hawk is somehow threatening or scary with its sharp talons and its eyes fixed on its target.

D is another nonfiction sentence with brackets.

Cardiff, with a population of around 360,000, is the capital city of Wales and its largest city.

So it's come after the word Cardiff because it adds extra factual information about that noun.

And you'll notice how it's a phrase.

It does not contain a verb.

Final one, the volcano rumbled - loud as thunder - as ash spewed from its vent.

So here we've got a fiction sentence where that description, loud as thunder, inside the dashes tells us more, heightens that feeling of the volcano being loud and threatening.

Really well done if you've managed to punctuate those correctly.

Now let's move on now to looking at how we can use commas as well for parenthesis.

So we can also use commas to add parenthesis to a sentence just like we've seen with bracket and dashes.

And one way to do this is to use a relative clause, which I'm sure you've heard of already.

And a relative clause starts with a relative pronoun and is demarcated or shown on either side by a pair of commas.

So here are some of our relative pronouns.

Who, which, when, where, that, and whose.

And all relative clauses start with a relative pronoun.

Here are some examples.

Tenzing Norgay, who was born in May 1914, was one of the first climbers to summit, that means reach the top of, Mount Everest.

And another one, the mountain, which is in Nepal, is over 8,000 metres tall.

So a relative clause follows the noun or the noun phrase it adds more detail about.

So in the first example, the relative clause, who was born in May 1914, tells us more about Tenzing Norgay.

And in the second example, the relative clause, which is in Nepal, tells us more about the mountain.

And just like with our other types of parenthesis, it can be removed and the sentence will still make sense.

So for example, the first sentence would read, Tenzing Norgay was one of the first climbers to summit Mount Everest.

And the second would say, the mountain is over 8,000 metres tall.

So we've removed the parenthesis and the sentence still works.

So we've seen that we generally use brackets in nonfiction writing and dashes in fiction writing.

But a relative clause demarcated by commas can be used as parenthesis in both fiction and nonfiction writing.

Now we saw two nonfiction examples on the last page.

So let me show you two fiction examples now.

We could say, the dark mountain, where many had lost their lives, loomed over us, filling us all with a deep anxiety.

We've got our relative clause there, where many had lost their lives.

Here's another one.

My fellow climbers, whose legs were aching with cold, collapsed into their tents, groaning and sighing.

So we've got our relative clause, whose legs were aching with cold.

And a relative clause is a type of subordinate clause, so it doesn't make complete sense in its own, and it must contain a verb and it must begin with a relative pronoun.

So we've got our verbs here, had lost and were aching, and our relative pronouns here, where and whose.

That's how we know these are relative clauses.

And when a relative clause interrupts a main clause, like we can see here, we can call it an embedded relative clause because it's embedded in the middle of the main clause.

So in that first example, the main clause would say, the dark mountain loomed over us, filling us all with a deep anxiety.

So we've actually got a main clause there, joined to a non-finite -ing clause, filling us all with a deep anxiety, at the end there.

But the relative clause is embedded in the middle of that sentence, so we can call it an embedded relative clause.

So can you decide which relative pronoun we'd need in each of these relative clauses? Can you choose between which, when, where, whose, or who as the relative pronoun in each one? Pause the video and decide.

Okay, let's take a look.

In A, we would say, King Charles, who ascended the throne in 2022, was born in November 1948.

In B, we would say, Anna, whose feet were bruised and sore, trod gingerly over the rubble, desperately searching for her family.

And in C we would say, 10 Downing Street, where the prime minister lives, is over 300 years old and is also to Larry the Cat.

And in D we would say, that night, when the soldiers arrived, was a night that I would not forget for the rest of my life.

So we've got our relative pronouns, who, whose, where, and when, starting our embedded relative clauses as a piece of parenthesis inside these sentences for some extra information.

Really well done for getting those relative pronouns right.

Now, I've given you in each case here a main clause and a relative clause.

I'd like you to use the relative clauses to add parenthesis to the main clause to the sentence in black.

And you're going to use commas in this case to demarcate, to show the relative clause.

So for A, you've got a main clause in black and then a relative clause in green.

Can you combine them to make a sentence which includes parenthesis, and the parenthesis will be an embedded relative clause.

Pause the video and have a go.

Great effort.

Let's take a look at A.

For A, we would say, Edmund Hillary, who had climbed with Tenzing Norgay, was born in New Zealand.

So we've got our relative clause following Edmund Hillary, the noun phrase it's about.

Then we could say for B, a solitary figure, whose eyes shown in the darkness, stood silhouetted on the hill.

So here the relative clause is about that solitary figure.

So we've placed the relative clause after that noun phrase.

Really well done if you managed to do this.

So you've seen that relative clauses containing verbs can be used to add parenthesis to a sentence, but we can also use commas to add parenthesis as a phrase that does not contain a verb.

And again, we can use these in both fiction and nonfiction writing.

Here are some examples.

The river, a ribbon of pure blue, dashed across the grassy terrain.

Her car, the newest model around, zoomed past us as we jumped out of the way.

Agatha Christie, the renowned crime author, died in 1976.

And, Edinburgh, a city of 500,000 people, is built around an ancient volcano.

So the parenthesis again comes after the noun or the noun phrase it tells us more about, and we can see those noun phrases here.

A ribbon of pure blue tells us more about the river.

The renowned crime author tells us more about Agatha Christie.

So when we add parenthesis as a phrase using commas, it usually begins with an article.

And you probably know the articles in English are the, a, and an.

So for example, the River Severn, the longest in the UK, flows through both England and Wales.

The cave, a never-ending tunnel of granite, twisted and turned through the mountainside.

And the book, an epic of 600 pages, was published in 2014.

So because these are phrases, they don't contain verbs.

The longest in the UK has no verb.

And as with all our parenthesis, these phrases could be removed and the sentences would still make sense, and we can tell whether commas should be placed by thinking about which part of the sentence makes sense on its own.

Say for example, in the first one, if we remove the parenthesis, it would say, the River Severn flows through both England and Wales.

The second one would say, the cave twisted and turned through the mountainside, and the third would say, the book was published in 2014.

In each of these cases, the parenthesis works because the rest of the sentence makes sense on its own, and we've just added in a piece of extra information after a noun phrase.

So, can you decide whether commas should be placed to show the parenthesis in these sentences? Pause the video and have a go.

Well done.

Good effort.

Let's have a look.

So in A, we would say, the Peak District, the UK's first National Park, is located mostly in Derbyshire.

Because the sentence we've interrupted with that parenthesis is the Peak District is located mostly in Derbyshire.

For B, we would say, the mountain, a shimmering cone of ice and snow, cast a long shadow over the valley.

For C, Sussex, a county in the south of England, was the site of the Battle of Hastings.

For D, Inspector Smolinski, the best detective on the force, furrowed his brow as he scanned the crime scene for evidence.

So in each case here, we've put commas around the piece of parenthesis that has been dropped in after that noun phrase for some extra information.

Okay, let's try our second task for this lesson.

I'm going to show you some sentences again with parenthesis added in, but not punctuated.

I want you to add commas to these sentences to show where the parenthesis is, and they'll be both relative clauses and the phrases we just saw.

So you've got to decide where is the parenthesis and place the commas either side of it.

So here are our sentences.

Pause the video to see if you can punctuate them using commas to show parenthesis.

Have a go.

Okay, let's take a look at these sentences.

In the first one, the parenthesis is the largest city in northeast England.

In B, it would be where Alfred the Great was buried, that's the relative clause, starting with where, the relative pronoun.

C is a narrow strip of mud.

So just the phrase.

D has, which was racing, a relative clause.

E has an area of high mountains and deep lakes, again, a phrase with no verb.

And F has, whose eyes were sharp, a relative clause.

Really well done if you've managed to demarcate or show that parenthesis using the commas in the right place.

Okay, let's try our final section of the lesson.

We're going to think about which is the most appropriate piece of punctuation to show each type of parenthesis.

So we've seen that parenthesis can be added to a sentence using three different punctuation marks.

We've seen that we use brackets for adding factual information as a phrase in a nonfiction text.

For example, The Shard, at 310 metres, is the UK's tallest building.

And that's a phrase because it doesn't contain a verb.

We've seen that dashes can be used for adding dramatic effect in a fiction text as a phrase or a clause.

So for instance, the tower rose up - vast and dagger-like - towards the heavens.

That's a phrase, it has no verb.

Or we could say, we climbed the tower - panting and gasping - with aching feet and failing spirits.

So that's a clause.

In both those cases we've heightened that feeling or description by adding in the parenthesis using brackets.

And finally we've seen that commas can be used for adding details in both fiction and nonfiction texts, and they can use either a phrase or a clause.

So for instance, the vast tower, where it had all begun, loomed over us once more.

This is fiction and it's a relative clause, starting with that relative pronoun, where, or we could have, the vast tower, a glittering glass structure, loomed over us once more.

Again, this is fiction, but it's a phrase this time.

And notice how even though these are both fiction examples, we're not actually trying to heighten a dramatic feeling here.

We are just giving some extra information or some extra description.

So that's how these are slightly different to our dashes.

The dashes are always to ramp up a feeling, to make someone feel something even more.

But in this case, with the commas, we are just giving extra detail.

We're not increasing that dramatic effect.

Let's look at some nonfiction examples with commas.

We could say, The Shard, the seventh tallest building in Europe, sits by the River Thames.

That's a phrase.

Or we could say, The Shard, which was completed in 2013, sits by the River Thames, and that's a relative clause again.

So notice how commas are very versatile.

We can use them in lots of different ways.

We can use them in a fiction text and we can use them in a nonfiction text.

And notice how in the nonfiction examples, we could use brackets in the same place as we use our commas.

That's just the choice we have to make.

So we have some sentences here which contain parenthesis, but it's not being punctuated.

I want you to decide what's the most appropriate punctuation for the parenthesis in each of these sentences.

Maybe there might be two options.

Pause the video and have a think.

Well done, let's take a look.

In A, we've got, a noise deafening and sudden echoed through the dark cave.

I can tell this is fiction.

So I'm thinking it could be commas or dashes, but I think this is heightening a strong emotion for dramatic effect, so I'm going to use dashes.

A noise - deafening and sudden - echoed through the dark cave.

For B, I can tell this is nonfiction straight away.

So I've got a choice here.

I could either use brackets or commas to say the Emily Moor TV Mast, at 390 metres, is slightly taller than The Shard, but it is not a building.

Commas would work there as well.

So that would be fine in either case.

C looks to me like it might be a fiction text, again.

A silence, which is just as deafening, followed the loud noise.

So here I'm going to use commas because it's a relative clause.

So, which was just as deafening, starts with that relative pronoun which, so it must be a relative clause.

So I need to use commas in that occasion.

For D, I've got the house, a charming little cottage by the clifftop, was empty except for some mice.

I can tell that's fiction, but I don't think here we're using a dramatic effect.

So I'm going to say I'm going to use commas around the parenthesis, which is, a charming little cottage by the clifftop.

We're not ramping up a feeling there, are we? We are just trying to show some extra information about the house, so commas are more appropriate.

Really well done if you've managed to get those.

So let's do our final task for this lesson.

Again, I'm gonna show you some sentences and I want you to find the parentheses in each sentence and choose the most appropriate punctuation to show it.

Is it brackets or dashes or commas? Remember brackets in nonfiction, dashes in fiction to heighten a dramatic effect.

Commas in either fiction or nonfiction.

Always use commas around a relative clause.

And if we're not ramping up a dramatic effect in our fiction writing, it might well be you want to use our commas instead of dashes.

Here are your sentences.

Pause the video and have a go.

Okay, let's take a look.

For A, I can see it's a relative clause.

So I've used commas.

This is from a fiction text.

The creature, whose eyes glowed in the darkness, appeared to be following us through the trees.

We're not increasing a dramatic effect there particularly.

We are definitely using a relative clause, so we need to use the commas.

For B, I've got a nonfiction sentence.

The Isle of Man, an island in the Irish Sea, is not technically part of the United Kingdom.

So I've used brackets there, but we'll come back to that one in a minute.

In C, I can see this is from a fiction text and we are trying to heighten the feeling of loneliness this toy has got.

So we've said, the toy sat on its shelf - discarded and completely alone - and it was forgotten for many long and silent years.

So I've used dashes there around the parenthesis because I think those words, discarded and completely alone, are heightening that feeling of loneliness for the toy.

And then for D, I've got here, the dog, a shaggy, friendly creature, approached and licked my hand happily.

Again, this is from fiction, but this time I don't think I'm heightening a dramatic effect.

I'm just giving more description of that dog.

So I'm going to use the commas in that case.

Now you probably spotted that in B, we had a second option.

We could use commas instead around this phrase, an island in the Irish Sea, in this nonfiction sentence.

Amazing job if you've managed to get those correct.

So let's summarise our learning in this lesson.

We've covered an awful lot of ground.

We've learned that parenthesis is additional information that's been added to a sentence, and if it's removed, the sentence still makes sense.

We've learned that we can use brackets to add parenthesis in a nonfiction piece of writing to add extra factual information as a phrase.

We've learned that we can use dashes to add parenthesis in a fiction piece of writing to heighten a dramatic effect for the reader, and that we can use commas to add parenthesis to any piece of writing as a relative clause or as a phrase.

You've done really, really well to get this lesson.

Fantastic work, and I can't wait to see you again in a future one.

Goodbye.