Bracketed Insertion
Editorial words added inside square brackets within a quotation.
A bracketed insertion is a word or phrase added by the quoting writer, not the original speaker, to make a quotation readable in its new context. It is enclosed in square brackets so the reader can tell it is not part of the original.
Bracketed insertions do several jobs. They can supply a name where the original used only a pronoun: 'He [Johnson] returned the next day.' They can clarify grammar: '[Their] argument was sound.' They can add a translation or a sic correction. Whatever the job, the brackets mark the boundary.
The rule is simple: if you change the original words, put your words in brackets. If you only omit words, use ellipsis. If you quote verbatim, use neither. The reader is entitled to know which operation has been performed.
Common mistake: using brackets to clean up a quotation silently. '[I] think' is fine if the original had 'we think'; it is not fine if the original had 'one thinks' and you want a first-person sentence.
“The committee [the Senate Judiciary Committee] voted against the measure.”
Keep reading the glossary
Square brackets mark editorial changes inside a quotation — clarifications, edits, or [sic].
Latin for 'thus' — used in quotes to mark an error reproduced from the original.
Three dots that mark words omitted from a quotation.
An editor's word or phrase inserted inside a quotation, marked with square brackets.