AGLC4 Rule 1.6.5: Square Brackets

Square brackets show a change made to a quotation, such as an altered letter case, and may contain words the author adds that were not in the source.

AGLC4 page 24

Formatting

  • Altered letters and inserted words are enclosed in square brackets.
  • The bracketed material is set in the same style as the surrounding quotation.

In the text

As Kirby J noted, ‘[t]he Minister did not appoint [Justice Mathews] as a reporter until her consent was first signified’.133

Quoted from the Guide, page 24

Forms in the rule

Quoted from the Guide, page 24
  • ‘[t]he Minister did not appoint [Justice Mathews] as a reporter

See also

Check your footnotes against these rules

Paste your paper into the free AGLC4 checker and each footnote is graded against the Guide, with the rule it breaks. To write a citation from scratch, use the AGLC4 citation generator.

Formats, examples, passages, tables and the forms marked Not are quoted from the Australian Guide to Legal Citation (4th ed, Melbourne University Law Review Association, 2018), with the page of the Guide they appear on. Titles, summaries and explanations are our own.