Note (typography)

Endnote redirects here. For other uses, see Endnote (disambiguation)

A footnote is a note of text placed at the bottom of a page in a book or document. The note comments on and may cite a reference for part of the main body of text. A footnote is normally flagged by a superscript number following that portion of the text the note is in reference to.

¹ for the first footnote on the page, ² for the second footnote, and so on.

Occasionally a number between brackets or parentheses, is used instead, thus: [1]. Typographical devices such as the asterisk (*) or dagger (†) may also be used to point to footnotes. In documents like timetables, many different symbols, as well as letters and numbers, may be used to refer the reader to particular footnotes.

Endnotes are similar to footnotes, but differ in that rather than appearing at the foot of the particular page, they are collected together at the end of the chapter or at the end of the work. Endnotes are generally harder to read than footnotes, as moving back and forth between the main text and the endnotes takes additional time and effort.

• The U.S. Government Printing Office Style Manual devotes six pages to the topic. <<<You see, look, a footnote!
• NASA has guidance for footnote usage in its historical documents. <<<You see, look, another footnote!

Academic usage

Academic and scientific works are written by a process of argument. A good argument puts forward a point of view that is well grounded: it has evidence to support it. Scholars use footnotes and/or endnotes for a variety of reasons including:

• To direct the reader by the most efficient signposts to the place where the information you have provided can be checked and verified or where further useful information is. Information that should be footnoted is that which is not common knowledge or which is controversial;
• To attribute the quote or viewpoint;
• To allow you to acknowledge your intellectual debts to others;
• To escape the limitations imposed on the word count of various academic and legal texts which do not take into account footnotes. Aggressive use of this strategy can lead the text to be seen as affected by what some people call "footnote disease."

Footnotes as a literary device

At times, footnotes and endnotes have been used for their comical effect, or as a literary device.

• Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman utilizes extensive and lengthy footnotes for the discussion of a fictional philosopher, de Selby. These footnotes span several pages and often overtake the main plotline, and add to the absurdist tone of the book.
• David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest includes over 400 endnotes, some over a dozen pages long. Several literary critics suggested that the book be read with two bookmarks.
• Manuel Puig's Kiss of the Spider Woman (originally published in Spanish as El beso de la mujer araña) also makes extensive use of footnotes.
• Mark Dunn's Ibid: A Life is written entirely in endnotes.
• Luis d'Antin Van Rooten's, Mots d’Heures: Gousses, Rames (the title is in French, but when pronounced, sounds like the English "Mother Goose Rhymes"), in which he is allegedly the editor of a manuscript by the fictional François Charles Fernand d’Antin, contains copious footnotes purporting to help explain the nonsensical French text. The point of the book is that each written French poem sounds like an English nursery rhyme.
• Terry Pratchett has made numerous uses within his novels. The footnotes will often set up running jokes for the rest of the novel.
• Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell uses dozens of footnotes referencing a number of fictional books including magical scholarship and biographies.

Opponents of footnotes

Associate Justice Stephen Breyer of the Supreme Court of the United States is famous in the American legal community for his writing style, in which he never uses footnotes. He prefers to keep all citations inline (which is permitted in American legal citation).

See also

• Citation
• Warichu