What do brackets show when they are in a quotation?

Answer 1

The specifics differ depending on the style you're following (e.g. MLA, APA, Chicago), but generally speaking you would enclose the page number where you found the quote within parentheses after the quote.

Answer 2

I believe they are used to subsitute a word that was not actually used, but is necessary to include to make sense out of context.

Like so:

"I believe [brackets] are used to subsitute a word that was not actually used, but is necessary to include [within the quotation] to make sense out of context."

The issue here is that, in the original, my meaning was clear. But if you take my message out of context, you wouldn't have any idea what I was talking about. Thus, you need to add words. Brackets are a way to alter a quotation without actually changing it.

Answer 3

If there are no brackets included in the original sentence you are quoting, you use brackets to add something that is not the part of the original sentence, i.e. you insert your comments in the quote. It is usually done when quoting only the part of the original text, so the reader might not understand the sentence due to lack of information about the whole text. For example:

It is not his business who I'm dating with. Original sentence

Jenny said: "It is not his [David's] business who I'm dating with."

Additionally, if you add emphasis in the form of bold or italicizing, you would add [emphasis added] at the end, but inside the quotation marks.

"James, himself, witnessed the crime." Original sentence

"James, himself, witnessed the crime. [emphasis added]"

Finally, if the original quotation contains misspellings or grammatical errors, you will want to quote the original, but note that you are aware of the errors,and that you kept the original intact. For example:

"Wally James and me went to the dock to fish." Original sentence

"Wally James and me went to the dock to fish. [sic]" (Note that the commas are missing after Wally, James, and me. Also, the writer substitutes the objective mefor the subjective I. This is an increasingly common error. Me never performs an action. I always does, at least where I is the subject, the one performing the action in the sentence. It is important to note that typically, [sic] appears immediately after the error, hoever in our example there are multiple errors and such would be redundant and cumbersome. The example would appear like this if we used [sic] in the traditional way: "Wally [sic] James [sic] and me [sic] went to the dock to fish." It is acceptable to do this, but placing it at the end of such a sentence is acceptable as well.

Just to wrap up, sic is Latin for thus, and is intended as a place marker literally to point at the error, shortened from sic erat scriptum (or thus it was written). It is used in brackets to keep it separate from the quoted text.

Answer 4

There are two reasons why you use brackets in a quote. You would use them when you need to change capitalization in a sentence. You also use brackets in quotations when a pronoun must be changed or if there was a misspelling in the original text.

Answer 5

Brackets in a quotation indicate that the words contained within them are not part of the original quote, but have been added for clarification or context.

Answer 6

The quote has been changed from its original text

Answer 7

To show that the quotation has been changed

Answer 8

The quotation has been changed.