In scientific writing it is common to use parentheses to refer to the details of statistical analyses at the end of a sentence. However, it is also common to refer to figures or tables this way. Often I find that the same sentence requires both a reference to statistical details and a figure (example below). Should I use adjacent parenthetical references or separate the statistical information from the figure reference with a semicolon?
Treatment A contained significantly greater mass than treatment B (p = 0.001)(Figure 1).
OR
Treatment A contained significantly greater mass than treatment B (p = 0.001; Figure 1).
Answer
Don't write pairs of parentheses back to back (don't do it)(no, really!). Either you can put on of the two items in the main text:
Treatment A contained significantly greater mass than treatment B (p = 0.001), as show on Figure 1.
or use the semicolon, as you proposed:
Treatment A contained significantly greater mass than treatment B (p = 0.001; Figure 1).
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