How does one invoke Parallel Query?

After setting the INIT.ORA parameters necessary for Parallel
Query to work, do the following:

• Alter the table (or index) to indicate that Oracle should try to parallelize operations performed against it

  ALTER TABLE table_name PARALLEL (DEGREE 8);

• Put hints in SQL statements to indicate that Oracle should try to execute them in parallel:

  SELECT --+ PARALLEL(table_alias, degree, nodes)
         * 
    FROM table_name ...

  SELECT /*+PARALLEL(table_alias, degree, nodes)*/ * 
    FROM table_name ...