Paul Robinson, The Philosophy of Punctuation: "if the undergraduate essays I see are representative, we are in the midst of an epidemic of semicolons. I suspect that the semicolon is so popular because it is the first fancy punctuation mark students learn of, and they assume that its frequent appearance will lend their writing a properly scholarly cast."

This is wonderful. The author claims that parentheses are a sign of laziness or, at least, a lack of discipline on the part of the writer (a sentiment with which I disagree). 🙂