I came across this usage in excerpts from the dissent by Justice Kagan to the US Supreme Court’s decision [see image I will attempt to attach, that I snagged from here: https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2023/06/john-roberts-demonstrates-a-justified-lack-of-confidence-in-his-arrogation-of-congressional-and-presidential-authority]. I’m going to guess that it indicates a tense change, so like in my example in the post title maybe the quote was “asked you” and I changed it to “ask[ ] you” to fit my sentence. I went to a lot of schooling but I don’t recall this empty brackets usage. I figure, why not Ask Kbin!
Your analysis is correct. This is how you attribute a quote where you have removed a letter for readability in a different context.
And here I’ve been using an elipsis like a fool
@RMiddleton Yep. Means the author removed a letter from the word. So in the image above the author removed a d or s from the word waive. It just helps the quote make sense in context of the passage.
It’s worth noting that this is nothing to do with legal writing in particular. You’ll find this in all academic writing as well, and in journalism.
For some reason I have never noticed this before, or else I have just forgotten it in the 3 decades since I was in college.
![Legal minds, what do empty brackets mean inside a quote? Like this: Can I "ask[ ] you?"](https://media.kbin.social/94/a5/94a5523ec3953c896239c439533874f3231fad0c3e01099b1e63140dd703163f.png){kind=link}