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For example there is one paragraph (I added one sentence from wikipedia after the sentence with the ending parenthesis sub-sentence quoted from thepunctuationguide link. I also uses "(long-contents.)." instead of ". (long-contents.)" in the original reference):

The idea that theoretical physics can be taught without reference to complex mathematics is patently absurd (But don’t tell that to the publishers of such mathematics-free books⁠—or the people who buy them.). Theoretical physics consists of several different approaches. In this regard, theoretical particle physics forms a good example. For instance: "phenomenologists" might employ (semi-) empirical formulas and heuristics to agree with experimental results, often without deep physical understanding.

The structure is:

Say something about theoretical physics and mathematics (Say something about mathematics.). Say something only about theoretical physics...

I followed this QA which says the sentence should be fine by removing the entire parenthesis part. So the above is fine.


I have questions about where I should put the period for the 1st sentence. It seems like one sentence with one very long tail for the above. But the following will then relate the contents about both theoretical physics and mathematics with the latter instead of the former.

Say something about theoretical physics and mathematics. (Say something about mathematics.) Say something only about theoretical physics...


From this reference of the above QA, we can put those sentence inside "Say something about expression". But that will make the sentence not consistent like one creature with one small head and small feet but one very long body. Then the sentence is a bit not readable.

Q:

How to improve the structure of the 1st modified quotation sentence? Maybe that structure is totally wrong as this short and elegant introduction for usage of Parentheses and Brackets implies that Parentheses may be inappropriate to add one long supplementary info inside one sentence. Then how to do that with possible other punctuations?

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  • The original is not clear. What does "Say something about expression" mean? Is it an editor's suggestion to the author, who is supposed to rework the paragraph? And what are notice1 and notice2? Do they each point to a block of text?
    – TimR
    Commented Nov 16 at 10:43
  • @TimR Sorry. I encountered with this problem when I wrote one post which is a bit long. So I can't give one full background for the 1st quote in my post. You can think of "Say something about expression" as one placeholder which will be populated with many contents about expression object. This is same for "notice1 about expression" and "notice2 about expression" which just mean "notice here the expression is transformed to one ..." which is one notice about expression.
    – An5Drama
    Commented Nov 16 at 10:58
  • The cited text uses English words, but imho it's syntactically and semantically beyond salvation even if treated as an Off Topic "proofreading" issue. Just write whatever you want to say using a couple of paragraphs or more. Commented Nov 16 at 14:39
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    @FumbleFingers Okay. I don't know why just asking one problem about the sentence structure without saying detailedly about the contents inside that sentence is not feasible. Since 2 readers have complained about that, maybe I should give one concrete example sentence. Sorry for the before words maybe nonsense. I have updated my question just now.
    – An5Drama
    Commented Nov 16 at 15:06
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    I still have no idea what you're asking. Why can't you just give one short sentence (or possibly two consecutive short sentences? I don't know what you want) and briefly identify whatever aspect of the syntax you're unsure of. Your attempts to fully describe the (syntactic? semantic?) aspects using what's obviously a foreign language to you aren't really helpful here. Commented Nov 16 at 16:11

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