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Note (typography)

In publishing, a note is a brief text wherein the author comments upon the subject and themes of the book and names the supporting citations. In the editorial production of books and documents, typographically, a note usually is several lines of text at the bottom of the page, at the end of a chapter, at the end of a volume, or can be a house-style typographic usage throughout the text; notes usually are identified with superscript numbers or a symbol.[1]

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

Moreover, footnotes are informational notes located at the foot of the thematically relevant page, whilst endnotes are informational notes published at the end of a chapter, the end of a volume, or the conclusion of a multi-volume book. Unlike footnotes, which require manipulating the page design (text-block and page layouts) to accommodate the additional text, endnotes are advantageous to editorial production because the textual inclusion does not alter the design of the publication;[2] however, graphic designers of contemporary editions of the Bible place the notes in a narrow column in the page centre, between two columns of biblical text.

Numbering and symbols[edit]

In the typesetting of texts in the English language, the footnotes and the endnotes usually are indicated with a superscript number at the end of the pertinent block of text. Typographic characters, such as the asterisk (*) and the dagger mark (†) also are used in place of sequential numbers to identify notes; the traditional order of usage of the typographic characters is: (i) the Asterisk [*], (ii) the Dagger mark †, (iii) the Crossed dagger mark ‡, (iv) the Section sign §, (v) the Vertical bar ‖, and (vi) the Pilcrow .[3] Additional typographic characters used to identify notes the Number sign #, the Greek letter delta Δ, the diamond-shaped lozenge ◊, the downward arrow ↓, and the manicule ☞, the little hand with an extended index finger.[4][5]

As signposts to direct the reader to information the author has provided or where further useful information is pertaining to the subject in the main text.

To attribute a quote or viewpoint.

As an alternative to parenthetical references; it is a simpler way to acknowledge information gained from another source.

To escape the limitations imposed on the of various academic and legal texts which do not take into account notes. Aggressive use of this strategy can lead to a text affected by "foot and note disease" (a derogation coined by John Betjeman).[9][10]

word count

Notes are most often used as an alternative to long explanations, citations, comments, or annotations that can be distracting to readers. Most literary style guidelines (including the Modern Language Association and the American Psychological Association) recommend limited use of foot- and endnotes. However, publishers often encourage note references instead of parenthetical references. Aside from use as a bibliographic element, notes are used for additional information, qualification, or explanation that might be too digressive for the main text. Footnotes are heavily utilized in academic institutions to support claims made in academic essays covering myriad topics.


In particular, footnotes are the normal form of citation in historical journals. This is due, firstly, to the fact that the most important references are often to archive sources or interviews that do not readily fit standard formats, and secondly, to the fact that historians expect to see the exact nature of the evidence that is being used at each stage.


The MLA (Modern Language Association) requires the superscript numbers in the main text to be placed following the punctuation in the phrase or clause the note is about. The exception to this rule occurs when a sentence contains a dash, in which case the superscript would precede it.[8] However, MLA is not known for endnote or footnote citations, rather APA and Chicago styles use them more regularly. Historians are known to use Chicago style citations.


Aside from their technical use, authors use notes for a variety of reasons:

Government documents[edit]

The US Government Printing Office Style Manual devotes over 660 words to the topic of footnotes.[11] NASA has guidance for footnote usage in its historical documents.[12]

Legal writing[edit]

Former 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 notes. He prefers to keep all citations within the text (which is permitted in American legal citation).[13] Richard A. Posner has also written against the use of notes in judicial opinions.[14] Bryan A. Garner, however, advocates using notes instead of inline citations.[15]

's Finnegans Wake (1939) uses footnotes along with left and right marginal notes in Book II Chapter 2. The three types of notes represent comments from the three siblings doing their homework: Shem, Shaun, and Issy.

James Joyce

's "Notes Towards a Mental Breakdown" (1967) is one sentence ("A discharged Broadmoor patient compiles 'Notes Towards a Mental Breakdown,' recalling his wife's murder, his trial and exoneration.") and a series of elaborate footnotes to each one of the words.

J. G. Ballard

's House of Leaves (2000) uses what are arguably some of the most extensive and intricate footnotes in literature. Throughout the novel, footnotes are used to tell several different narratives outside of the main story. The physical orientation of the footnotes on the page also works to reflect the twisted feeling of the plot (often taking up several pages, appearing mirrored from page to page, vertical on either side of the page, or in boxes in the center of the page, in the middle of the central narrative).

Mark Z. Danielewski

's The Third Policeman (1967) 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.

Flann O'Brien

'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. Wallace uses footnotes, endnotes, and in-text notes in much of his other writing as well.

David Foster Wallace

's Kiss of the Spider Woman (originally published in Spanish as El beso de la mujer araña) also makes extensive use of footnotes.

Manuel Puig

's Lake Wobegon Days includes lengthy footnotes and a parallel narrative.

Garrison Keillor

's Ibid: A Life is written entirely in endnotes.

Mark Dunn

's Mots d'Heures: Gousses, Rames (the title is in French, but when pronounced, sounds similar to 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.

Luis d'Antin van Rooten

has made numerous uses within his novels. The footnotes will often set up running jokes for the rest of the novel.

Terry Pratchett

B.L.A. and G.B. Gabbler's meta novel makes uses of footnotes to break the fourth wall. The narrator of the novel, known as "B.L.A.," tells the fantastical story as if true, while the editor, Gabbler, annotates the story through footnotes and thinks the manuscript is only a prose poem attempting to be a literary masterwork.

The Automation

's 2004 novel Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell has 185 footnotes,[18] adumbrating fictional events before and after those of the main text, in the same archaic narrative voice, and citing fictional scholarly and magical authorities.[19]

Susanna Clarke

's The Bartimaeus Trilogy uses footnotes to insert comical remarks and explanations by one of the protagonists, Bartimaeus.

Jonathan Stroud

's Barry Trotter parody series used footnotes to expand one-line jokes in the text into paragraph-long comedic monologues that would otherwise break the flow of the narrative.

Michael Gerber

's An Abundance of Katherines uses footnotes, about which he says: "[They] can allow you to create a kind of secret second narrative, which is important if, say, you're writing a book about what a story is and whether stories are significant."[20]

John Green

Dr Carol Bolton uses extensive footnotes to provide the modern reader with a cipher for a novel about the travels of the fictional Spanish traveller , an early 19th-century construct of Robert Southey's, designed to provide him with vehicle to critique the societal habits of the day.

Don Manuel Alvarez Espriella

's Thursday Next series exploits the use of footnotes as a communication device (the footnoterphone) which allows communication between the main character’s universe and the fictional bookworld.

Jasper Fforde

's Natural History of the Dead uses a footnote to further satirize the style of a history while making a sardonic statement about the extinction of "humanists" in modern society.

Ernest Hemingway

's Historical and Critical Dictionary follows each brief entry with a footnote (often five or six times the length of the main text) in which saints, historical figures, and other topics are used as examples for philosophical digression. The separate footnotes are designed to contradict each other, and only when multiple footnotes are read together is Bayle's core argument for Fideistic skepticism revealed. This technique was used in part to evade the harsh censorship of 17th-century France.

Pierre Bayle

's novel Barney's Version uses footnotes as a character device that highlights unreliable passages in the narration. As the editor of his father's autobiography, the narrator's son must correct any of his father's misstated facts. The frequency of these corrections increases as the father falls victim to both hubris and Alzheimer's disease. While most of these changes are minor, a few are essential to plot and character development.

Mordecai Richler

In 's Pale Fire, the main plot is told through the annotative endnotes of a fictional editor.

Vladimir Nabokov

, a novel by Enrique Vila-Matas, is stylized as footnotes to a nonexistent novel.

Bartleby & Co.

The works of often have footnotes, detailing and informing the reader of the background of the world in the novel.

Jack Vance

's I Am America (And So Can You!) uses both footnotes and margin notes to offer additional commentary and humor.

Stephen Colbert

's novel S. uses footnotes to explore the story and relationship of characters V.M. Straka and F.X. Caldeira.

Doug Dorst

and Neil Gaiman's collaboration, Good Omens, frequently uses footnotes to add humorous asides.

Terry Pratchett

The short story "The Fifth Fear" in Terena Elizabeth Bell's Tell Me What You See uses footnotes to make the science fiction story resemble a historical document.[21][22]

collection

used footnotes frequently in his Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series.

Douglas Adams

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

Annotation

Citation

Hyperkino

Ibid.

Nota bene

Wikipedia style guide for references

Denton, William (2014). Fictional Footnotes and Indexes. Miskatonic University Press.

(1997). The Footnote: A Curious History. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-90215-7.

Grafton, Anthony

Riess, Peter (1984). Toward a Theory of the Footnote. Berlin: De Gruyter.  717030605.

OCLC

Zerby, Chuck (2002). The Devil's Details: A History of Footnotes. Montpelier, Vt.: Invisible Cities Press.  1931229058.

ISBN