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punctuation - Is there any rule for the placement of space after and before parentheses?


I often get stuck when forming or formatting a sentence with one or more parentheses. For example, I wrote an answer on another Stack Exchange site, in which I wrote:



...whereas, my phone(xperia x10 mini) comes with several widgets...



which, afterwards, I thought should be:



...whereas, my phone (xperia x10 mini) comes with several widgets...



But in some cases I feel the former way is correct, like:



... phones which have a camera include IPhone(5MP), Nokia N8(12MP), Nokia X6(3MP)....



Is there any rule for the placement of space after and before parentheses?



Answer



The one rule remains readability.


No space before a parenthesis is usually used with functions:


f(x)

Since your technical description of camera isn't a "function", I would still go with:



...phones which have camera include IPhone (5MP), Nokia N8 (12MP), Nokia X6 (3MP)



That being said, if you have a consistent convention throughout your document with no space before parenthesis, you could go with it.


But as you illustrate in your question, there are instances where a space is needed. 


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