Can you tell me about parenthesis?
They group stuff together so you know to perform an operation on more than just 1 thing.
EXAMPLES:
-x^2 means you just square the x and the answer will have a negative sign in front
(-x)^2 means you square not just x, but (-x), which will give you a positive number.
5 + 2^2 = 5 + 4 = 9
(5 + 2)^2 = 7^2 = 49