editing - Cleaning up / formatting verbatim quotations

Frequently, I have situations where I am in need of the ability to quote an individual who has written something verbatim that has some type of grammatical error. Although I would like to write it down verbatim, I do not want the spirit of the comment lost to the reader on the basis of an obvious grammatical error or short form.

Here's an example:

"lking forward to seeing more gbl etfs"

Now, I know that this individual is saying "I'm looking forward to seeing more global exchange traded funds". However, this may not be clear to my reader without changing the text to reflect it.

I've seen in newspapers, where they use some nomenclature "(...)","[x]" or rules for showing where they have changed a quotation in order to fit or clarify the quotation (most of the time, in context).

My question is, where can I find these rules? What are they called?

Clarifying my Question:

I'm looking for rules for making the changes. I guess you would call it syntax. For example, how do you use [], (), ..., within a quotation to identify that a change has been made.

Answer

In Section 13.7, "Permissible changes to punctuation, capitalization, and spelling," the Chicago Manual of Style says:

Although in a direct quotation the wording should be reproduced exactly, the following changes are generally permissible to make a passage fit into the syntax and typography of the surrounding text.

...

Obvious typographic errors may be corrected silently (without comment or sic; see 13.59), unless the passage quoted is from an older work or a manuscript source where idiosyncrasies of spelling are generally preserved. If spelling and punctuation are modernized or altered for clarity, readers must be so informed in a note, in a preface, or elsewhere.

The sort of correction that you're proposing is covered by this guideline. For a more extensive paraphrase, it would probably be best to quote the person indirectly.

This type of editing is generally referred to as formatting a quotation; the MLA Style Guide has a number of guidelines for formatting quotations to indicate elided or added text.