: [Words in brackets in print and online] Unfortunately I can't find a reference now, but many times I'll read an article either in print or online, and I'll see a certain word or phrase in

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Bracketed statements are typically found inside quotes. The words are bracketed to indicate that they were not the exact words from the quotes, but are either paraphrased or included to give clarity to the words.

To use your example a little bit, suppose that the actual quote you want to refer to was:

"See that hill over there? The man walked up that thing last night."

Now, if all you care about is that second sentence, you can't just quote it by itself, because there's no indication of what "that thing" is. So you compromise by inserting the brackets to clarify what the quote is referring to:

According to witnesses, the man "walked up [the hill] last night."

For the second part of your question, what you're seeing are just scene breaks. They are placed between paragraphs to indicate to the reader that the paragraph above and the one below are not connected. They either take place in different areas, or at different times, or are in some other way unconnected.

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