That's why footnotes are so useful: they let authors provide the required information without disrupting the flow of ideas. Books would become much longer and reading would be much more tedious. Imagine if every time an author wanted to provide a citation, the entire citation had to be written out at the end of the sentence, like this (Anthony Grafton, The Footnote: A Curious History 221).

Providing this information is necessary, but doing so in the main text can disrupt the flow of the writing. Now that you understand what footnotes are, you might be wondering: why use them? The truth is, long explanatory notes can be difficult for readers to trudge through (especially when they occur in the middle of a paper). Writers use footnotes for several purposes, including citations, parenthetical information, outside sources, copyright permissions, background information, and more. What Are Footnotes?įootnotes are notes that are placed at the end of a page and used to reference parts of the text (generally using superscript numbers). Technical Guide to Using Footnotes 5.1 How to Add Footnotes in Microsoft Word 5.2 How to Add Footnotes in Google Docs 6. How to Use Footnotes in Essays 4.1 Style Guides 4.1.1 Modern Language Association (MLA) 4.1.2 American Psychological Association (APA) 4.1.3 Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) 5. How to Do Footnote Citations 3.1 In-Text Citations 3.2 Footnotes 4.

Endnotes 2.1 Should I Use Footnotes or Endnotes? 3. We've outlined how to use footnotes below. Take a look at the example below to see where footnotes appear on a page: These citations and explanations are called 'footnotes' (because they appear in the footer of the page).

Sometimes this information will come in the form of citations, but sometimes it will simply present additional notes about the topic at hand. These numbers usually appear as superscripts and correspond with numbers placed at the bottom of the page, next to which appears further information that is both necessary and supplementary. While reading a book or article, have you ever noticed little numbers placed at the ends of some sentences?

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