Brackets

The term brackets is rather vague; there are several varieties of brackets.

In Britain, brackets can refer to parentheses (the American term), or round brackets. These are the most commonly seen.

[ ] Square brackets are use much like parentheses. When you’re quoting someone and you need to put in some sort of explanation (e.g. clarify a pronoun or use sic to show an error), you put it in square brackets.

According to all the music magazines, “it’s the new up-and-coming band”.

The problem with this sentence is that we don’t know who it is. This is where we’d use square brackets to put in the actual name of the band.

According to all the music magazines, “[Flashhart] is the new up-and-coming band”.

The leader of the band is quoted as saying, “We be [sic] all that.”

We use sic in square brackets to show that the grammatical error is quoted, that it’s not our error.

{ } Curly brackets are used in music and mathematics, not in English text.

< > Chevron brackets are also mainly used in mathematics, but they are also used in some dictionaries to demonstrate how something is written.

The word is written and pronounced /dawg/.

Some languages (e.g. French) use double chevron brackets << >> to show quotes. If you’re putting a French quote in the middle of an English text, change the chevron brackets to quotation marks.

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The mother said to her child, “Je t’aime.”