Use of square brackets

Square brackets are not one of those pontuation marks we use often, maybe that's the reason they can cause some confusion.

I used Larry Trask's University of Sussex webite as a reference to this study.

• Square brackets
  
  In English, square brackets are used to set off an interruption within a direct quotation.
  Example: "The two brothers [Julian and Greg] loved each other very much."
  
  Sometimes it can also be used for citing references and also in some specific fields, like mathematics or linguistics, they're for certain purposes as well.

Kangas

Source: University of Sussex