The case of Brackets v. Parentheses

It was brought to my attention that in my last post I was wrong about the use of brackets, so let's have a little lesson, shall we?


Here's the paragraph in question:


"The drums went by my house. I didn't know about (the protest) until then, so we jumped up, hung up on the phone with my aunt, and jumped in,” said Elise Taft.


My argument (and one I considered to be relatively nitpicky) was that the use of parentheses was incorrect in this case, as brackets are usually used when you're changing a quote like this.

Paramore are a band

Are bands plural or singular? This one really pains me because the rules have changed, which creates a bit of confusion on some parts. Usually when you have a group made up of many parts, you refer to the group as singular because the group is one entity. For example:

A flock of birds is sitting in that tree.
A box of chocolates is a really cliche Valentine's Day gift.
My collection of MST3Ks is extensive.
My family is dysfunctional.