Adding extra information in sentences
Does adding extra information in the middle of a sentence work?
Why do we find it hard to resist adding extra information in the middle of a sentence? Does it add colour? Is it something we really want the reader to know?
Sometimes adding extra information is effective. Take the following two examples.
But if you’re someone who—oh, for the sake of argument—is unpleasantly surprised that people in their forties or fifties give you a seat on the bus, or that your doctors are forty years younger than you are, you just might resent time’s insistent drumbeat.
Arthur Krystal, the author of this article, is in his 70s, and you can infer from the aside that he is talking about personal experience.
The next example is from Ann Patchett’s The Dutch House.
As big as the Dutch House was, the kitchen was oddly small. Sandy told me that was because the only people ever meant to the kitchen were the servants, and no one in the business of building grand estates ever gave a rat’s hindquarters (that was a very Sandy thing to say, rat’s hindquarters) if the servants had the room to turn around.
In this example, the information in parentheses tells the reader that Sandy has a humorous way with words.
But sometimes adding asides is awkward or confusing even if the sentence is grammatically correct. Extra information between dashes, parentheses or commas becomes a problem if the reader has to re-read the sentence to understand it. When I re-read such sentences, I often mentally delete the extra information to see the bones of the sentence.
Here are three examples I’ve spotted in Sydney Morning Herald. (I am not going to reference these examples because we can all do this!) I’ve chosen examples using dashes and parentheses, but we can run into the same problem using commas.
Adding extra information in a sentence with dashes
This example, which I found confusing initially, is from a book review.
Sometimes this evocation of minute-to-minute physical experience is almost unbearable for the empathetic reader, as in the early scene where Wendy’s old car breaks down in a place on the freeway where it’s too difficult and dangerous to get out of the car, and her ancient dog – while they wait in the heat for roadside assistance and listen to the trucks thunder past – apologetically pees in her lap.
Without the extra information, this sentence reads:
Sometimes this evocation of minute-to-minute physical experience is almost unbearable for the empathetic reader, as in the early scene where Wendy’s old car breaks down in a place on the freeway where it’s too difficult and dangerous to get out of the car, and her ancient dog apologetically pees in her lap.
This example is from an article about ageing.
We anticipate the “negative benchmarks” associated with ageing, for instance – memory loss, illness, an end to sexual activity – at much higher levels than older people actually report experiencing them.
In my opinion, this sentence would work better with commas and no dashes.
We anticipate the “negative benchmarks” associated with ageing, for instance memory loss, illness, [and] an end to sexual activity, at much higher levels that older people actually report experiencing them.
Adding extra information in a sentence with parentheses
The following sentence is about the actor Richard Roxburgh, who is married to Silvia Colloca.
Whenever the family is home in Colloca’s native Italy, Roxburgh not only enjoys anonymity (like most serious actors, he shrinks from celebrity) but a lot of soft cheese.
Without the extra information, this sentence reads:
Whenever the family is home in Colloca’s native Italy, Roxburgh not only enjoys anonymity but a lot of soft cheese.
In this sentence, the writer has left out ‘also’, which usually goes with but when preceded by not only. Such pairs are known as correlative conjunctions. Other examples are either/or and neither/nor.
Start again and rewrite your sentence
Even with the extra information removed, none of the above sentences are great. The solution is usually to start again and write in a more straightforward manner.
Two techniques to consider are:
- Changing the word order
- Breaking the sentence into two or more sentences
For example:
Sometimes this evocation of minute-to-minute physical experience is almost unbearable for the empathetic reader. For instance, in an early scene Wendy’s old car breaks down in a place on the freeway where it’s too difficult and dangerous to get out of the car. While they wait in the heat for roadside assistance and listen to the trucks thunder past, her ancient dog apologetically pees in her lap.
Like many serious actors, Roxburgh shrinks from celebrity and enjoys the anonymity that Colloca’s native Italy provides. The soft cheeses are also an attraction.
