

The term sic is also often used in a pair of square brackets to indicate that a quote originally had a grammatical error in it, and the writer didn’t make a mistake when reprinting it. Square brackets are used to indicate to a reader that the writer added their own words to a quote, added additional context, or otherwise made a change to a quote that wasn’t originally there. Square brackets, often just called brackets in American English, are typically only used with quotations in formal writing. Know your brackets? Then head over and take our quick quiz on the different types.


Edward I of England (1239–1307) was called “Edward Longshanks.”.The shuttle was built by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).The cat population doubled over the past 10 years.(The dogs were much less enthusiastic about it.) The owners loved dressing their dogs up in funny outfits.Some other information that might be contained within parentheses includes sources, references, abbreviations, acronyms, telephone area codes, and lifespans. Bananas are good for you (and tasty, too).Last year, the first pitch was thrown by Santa Claus (yes, really).One particularly common use is to insert additional but unessential information, such as a writer’s commentary, into a sentence. Parentheses have a lot of different uses. Most writers will tend to use them sparingly but effectively. Let’s look at each of the four different types of brackets, moving from the pair you are most likely to see to the pair you will almost never see (in writing, at least).ĭespite being the most commonly used of the four types of brackets, parentheses are still less common than other punctuation marks in formal writing. Although you may not get many chances yourself to bust out a pair of curly brackets or angle brackets, it doesn’t hurt to learn what they are typically used for so they don’t catch you by surprise. Of these four, parentheses are by far the most commonly used and are the punctuation marks that most writers are likely most familiar with. They are parentheses, square brackets, curly brackets, and angle brackets. When considering punctuation marks, there are four pairs of marks that may be referred to as a type of bracket.
