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Note (typography)
Note (typography)
Note (typography)
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In publishing, a note is a brief text in which the author comments on the subject and themes of the book and names supporting citations. In the editorial production of books and documents, typographically, a note is usually several lines of text at the bottom of the page, at the end of a chapter, at the end of a volume, or a house-style typographic usage throughout the text. Notes are usually identified with superscript numbers or a symbol.[1]

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.[1] However, graphic designers of contemporary editions of the Bible often place the notes in a narrow column in the page centre, between two columns of biblical text.

Numbering and symbols

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In English-language typesetting, footnotes and endnotes are usually indicated with a superscript number appended to the pertinent block of text. Typographic symbols are sometimes used instead of numbers, with their traditional ordering being:

  1. Asterisk (*)
  2. Dagger (†)
  3. Crossed dagger (‡)
  4. Section sign (§)
  5. Vertical bar (‖)
  6. Pilcrow (¶)[2]

Additional typographic characters used to identify notes include the number sign (#), the Greek letter delta (Δ), the diamond-shaped lozenge (◊), the downward arrow (↓), and the manicule (☞), a hand with an extended index finger.[3][4]

Location

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Footnote reference numbers ("cues") in the body text of a page should be placed at the end of a sentence if possible, after the final punctuation. This minimizes the interruption of the flow of reading and allows the reader to absorb a complete sentence-idea before having their attention redirected to the content of the note.[5]

The cue is placed after any punctuation (normally after the closing point of a sentence). ... Notes cued in the middle of a sentence are a distraction to the reader, and cues are best located at the end of sentences.[6]

Academic usage

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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.[7] However, MLA is not known for endnote or footnote citations, and 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:

  • 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 word count 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).[8][9]

Government documents

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The US Government Printing Office Style Manual devotes over 660 words to the topic of footnotes.[10] NASA has guidance for footnote usage in its historical documents.[11]

[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).[12] Richard A. Posner has also written against the use of notes in judicial opinions.[13] Bryan A. Garner, however, advocates using notes instead of inline citations.[14]

HTML

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A footnote on the Wikipedia article "William Booth (forger)", rendered as a "pop up" over the relevant text

HTML, the predominant markup language for web pages, has no mechanism for adding notes. Despite a number of different proposals over the years, the working group has been unable to reach a consensus on it.[15] Because of this, MediaWiki, for example, has had to introduce its own <ref></ref> tag for citing references in notes.

It might be argued that the hyperlink partially eliminates the need for notes, being the web's way to refer to another document. However, it does not allow citing to offline sources and if the destination of the link changes, the link can become dead or irrelevant.[16] A proposed[by whom?] solution is the use of a digital object identifier. As of 2024, the HTML Living Standard has provided several workarounds for the inclusion of footnotes depending on length or type of annotation.[17]

In instances where a user needs to add an endnote or footnote using HTML, they can add the superscript number using <sup></sup>, then link the superscripted text to the reference section using an anchor tag. Create an anchor tag by using <a name="ref1"></a> and then link the superscripted text to "ref1".

History

[edit]

The London printer Richard Jugge is generally credited as the inventor of the footnote, first used in the Bishops' Bible of 1568.[18]

Early printings of the Douay Bible used a four-dot punctuation mark (represented in Unicode as U+2E2C “⸬”) to indicate a marginal note.[citation needed] It can often be mistaken for two closely-spaced colons.

Literary device

[edit]

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

  • James Joyce'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.
  • J. G. Ballard'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.
  • Mark Z. Danielewski'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).
  • Flann O'Brien'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.
  • 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. Wallace uses footnotes, endnotes, and in-text notes in much of his other writing as well.
  • 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.
  • Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon Days includes lengthy footnotes and a parallel narrative.
  • 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 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.
  • Terry Pratchett has made numerous uses within his novels. The footnotes will often set up running jokes for the rest of the novel.
  • B.L.A. and G.B. Gabbler's meta novel The Automation 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.
  • Susanna Clarke's 2004 novel Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell has 185 footnotes,[19] adumbrating fictional events before and after those of the main text, in the same archaic narrative voice, and citing fictional scholarly and magical authorities.[20]
  • Jonathan Stroud's The Bartimaeus Trilogy uses footnotes to insert comical remarks and explanations by one of the protagonists, Bartimaeus.
  • Michael Gerber'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.
  • John Green'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."[21]
  • 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 Don Manuel Alvarez Espriella, an early 19th-century construct of Robert Southey's, designed to provide him with vehicle to critique the societal habits of the day.
  • Jasper Fforde'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.
  • Ernest Hemingway'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.
  • Pierre Bayle'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.
  • Mordecai Richler'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.
  • In Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire, the main plot is told through the annotative endnotes of a fictional editor.
  • Bartleby & Co., a novel by Enrique Vila-Matas, is stylized as footnotes to a nonexistent novel.
  • The works of Jack Vance often have footnotes, detailing and informing the reader of the background of the world in the novel.
  • Stephen Colbert's I Am America (And So Can You!) uses both footnotes and margin notes to offer additional commentary and humor.
  • Doug Dorst's novel S. uses footnotes to explore the story and relationship of characters V.M. Straka and F.X. Caldeira.
  • Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman's collaboration, Good Omens, frequently uses footnotes to add humorous asides.
  • The short story "The Fifth Fear" in Terena Elizabeth Bell's collection Tell Me What You See uses footnotes to make the science fiction story resemble a historical document.[22][23]
  • Douglas Adams used footnotes frequently in his Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series.

See also

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References

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Further reading

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Revisions and contributorsEdit on WikipediaRead on Wikipedia

Note (typography)

View on Grokipedia
from Grokipedia
In typography, a note refers to a supplementary string of text positioned at the bottom of a page (as a footnote) or at the end of a chapter, section, or entire document (as an endnote), providing citations, explanations, commentary, or additional references linked to the main body text via superscript numerals, letters, or symbols such as asterisks (*), daggers (†), or double daggers (‡). These elements enhance by keeping primary content uninterrupted while allowing readers access to supporting details without disrupting the narrative flow. The origins of notes in typography trace back to medieval glosses and marginal annotations in biblical and legal texts, evolving through into structured scholarly tools by the 16th century, with early printers like Richard Jugge credited for pioneering page-bottom placement to rationalize text-citation relationships. Key developments occurred in the 17th and 18th centuries, as figures like employed extensive footnotes for critical analysis in works such as his Historical and Critical Dictionary (1697), and refined their literary use in The History of the Decline and Fall of the (1776–1789), shifting from endnotes to footnotes for better accessibility following critiques on reader convenience. By the , notes became standardized in academic and historical printing, influenced by Leopold von Ranke's emphasis on source verification, solidifying their role in modern typographic design. Typographic conventions for notes prioritize clarity and subtlety: reference markers in the body text are typically superscripted numerals in the same font family but in a reduced for discretion, while the note text itself is set in a smaller point size—often 7–8 points for 10–12 point body text—and separated from the main content by extra white space or a short horizontal rule to avoid visual clutter. Footnote numbers appear full-size (non-superscripted) at the start of each note, with the first line often given a slight indent (0.5–1 em) or negative indent for the number to align subsequent lines flush left, ensuring uniform spacing and easy scanning; in cases of dense notes, symbols follow a traditional sequence (*, †, ‡, §, ||, #) before resorting to numerals. These practices, drawn from traditions, balance functionality with aesthetic harmony in .

Basic Concepts

Definition and Purpose

In typography, a note refers to supplementary text positioned outside the primary narrative to deliver additional context, such as explanations, citations, or clarifications, thereby preserving the main body's flow and readability. These elements, commonly manifested as footnotes or endnotes, enable authors to expand upon ideas without embedding extraneous details directly into the core content. The primary purpose of typographic notes is to furnish essential supporting information that enhances comprehension, including source attributions for factual claims or quotations, which upholds and allows readers to verify origins independently. They also serve to elucidate intricate or concepts—for instance, a note might define an archaic historical term in a biographical passage, ensuring without interrupting the narrative momentum. Furthermore, notes accommodate tangential commentary or background details, such as alternative interpretations of a quoted idea, fostering deeper engagement while maintaining the document's structural coherence. By segregating this auxiliary material, typographic notes uphold the integrity of the principal text, promoting a balanced that prioritizes essential information for efficient reading. This approach not only aids in organizing complex documents but also supports scholarly discourse by integrating expansive insights seamlessly.

Types of Notes

In typography, notes are primarily categorized into three types: footnotes, endnotes, and side notes, each distinguished by their position relative to the main text and intended to provide supplementary information such as citations or commentary. appear at the bottom of the page containing the reference, allowing readers immediate access to the additional content without disrupting the flow of reading. Endnotes, by contrast, are gathered at the end of a chapter or the entire document, consolidating all such material in one location. Side notes, also known as marginal notes, are placed in a narrow column alongside the main text block, integrating the supplementary information visually within the . The key distinctions among these types lie in their impact on and page composition. Footnotes facilitate quick reference, making them ideal for scholarly works where frequent consultation of sources is expected, though they can clutter the page bottom and reduce space for primary content. Endnotes minimize visual interruption in the main body, preserving a cleaner typographic appearance suitable for narrative or literary texts, but they require readers to navigate to the document's end, potentially hindering immediate comprehension. Side notes offer a balanced approach by keeping notes proximate to the text, enhancing contextual understanding in designed publications like academic books with ample margins, yet they demand sufficient page width to avoid crowding. Less common variants include inline notes, which integrate parenthetical phrases directly into the text flow, and pop-up notes employed in digital formats. Inline notes, often used in author-date citation systems, provide brief asides without external referencing, minimizing disruption for concise explanations in modern but limiting depth due to their embedded nature. In web and , pop-up notes activate on interaction to display content overlaying the page, enabling non-linear access that suits while maintaining the integrity of the primary layout, as recommended for accessible digital documents.

Formatting and Design

Numbering and Symbols

In , notes are commonly marked using sequential superscript numbers placed immediately after the relevant word or punctuation, such as ¹ or ², to indicate the corresponding note content. These numbers typically follow a linear progression starting from 1 and may either continue sequentially throughout the entire document for consistency in long works or restart at 1 for each chapter to aid in structured texts like books. advocates for this numerical system in most cases, particularly when notes are numerous, as it provides clear, expandable referencing without ambiguity. For situations with a limited number of notes, typographic symbols serve as alternative markers, following a conventional progression: (*), (†), double dagger (‡), (§), and (¶). This sequence is employed when numerical markers might overcomplicate sparse annotations, ensuring and tradition in . Symbols like the and double dagger, historically derived from medieval scribal practices, extend the 's role for second and third references, respectively, before reverting to numbers if more are needed. Alphabetic markers (a, b, c) or (i, ii, iii) are occasionally used for sub-notes within a primary note or in tabular contexts to denote subordinate references without conflicting with main numbering. Typographically, superscript markers—whether numerical or symbolic—are rendered in a reduced font size, often 60-70% of the body text's cap height, to minimize disruption while remaining legible. adjustments are essential around these superscripts to optimize spacing, particularly after marks, preventing awkward gaps or overlaps and maintaining the overall rhythm of the line; emphasizes ensuring adequate space from preceding elements for optical balance. Style guides like the Chicago Manual vary in preferences, with numbers favored for scholarly works but symbols permitted for brevity in editorial contexts.

Placement and Layout

In typography, footnotes are positioned at the bottom of the page on which the referenced material appears, ensuring immediate for readers without disrupting the main text flow. This placement is separated from the body text by a short horizontal ruled line to visually distinguish the notes while maintaining page integrity. In multi-column layouts, such as those in academic journals or newspapers, footnotes are often confined to the bottom of the specific column containing the reference, preventing cross-column interruptions and preserving columnar balance. Endnotes, by contrast, are gathered at the end of a chapter, section, or the entire , compiled in a numbered list that facilitates through sequential indexing corresponding to superscript markers in the text. This consolidated placement suits longer documents like books, where frequent page-turning for footnotes might hinder reading, and allows for more expansive note content without per-page space constraints. Layout rules for notes emphasize consistency and , with each note beginning on the page of its and using single spacing within individual entries, while double spacing separates multiple notes. The first line of each note is indented by half an inch, aligning subsequent lines flush left to create a clean, paragraph-like structure. For overflow in cases where a note exceeds available space, such as at the page bottom, it continues on the following page with an indicator like "continued," or is relocated as an to prevent awkward breaks and maintain aesthetic flow in . Designers also consider avoiding and lines by adjusting note positioning relative to the main text, ensuring no isolated note fragments appear at page tops or bottoms. To establish visual hierarchy, notes employ a smaller font size—typically 10 points if the body text is 12 points—to subordinate them to the primary content without sacrificing legibility. Alignment is usually justified, mirroring the main text for seamless integration, though left-aligned notes may be used in narrower formats to enhance . This approach integrates notes harmoniously with elements like running heads, preserving the document's overall typographic rhythm.

Usage in Professional Contexts

Academic and Scholarly Writing

In academic and scholarly writing, function primarily as tools for bibliographic citations, enabling precise attribution of sources, and for substantive elaboration, where authors provide additional , explanations, or tangential details that enhance the main without disrupting its flow. This dual role supports rigorous by maintaining transparency and depth, particularly in disciplines requiring extensive referencing. are more integral in the —such as , , and —where footnote or systems allow for layered discourse and immediate access to supporting evidence, contrasting with the sciences and social sciences, which favor concise parenthetical in-text citations to prioritize empirical clarity over expansive commentary. Style guides shape the application of notes across fields, with each offering tailored conventions. The (APA) style, prevalent in and social sciences, limits notes to endnotes for supplemental information, such as methodological caveats or nonessential data, while core citations use author-date parentheticals; for instance, an endnote might elaborate: "Further details on the are available in Appendix B." In contrast, the Modern Language Association (MLA) style, used in literary analysis and research, employs footnotes sparingly for elaboration or brief acknowledgments, reserving primary citations for in-text parentheticals, as in noting interpretive nuances during textual . The provides the most versatile framework, supporting both footnotes and endnotes for full bibliographic details in scholarship, with formats like author-date integrated into notes (e.g., "Doe, Title, 45–47"); this flexibility accommodates diverse source types, from archival materials to digital interviews. Best practices emphasize restraint in note usage to preserve and focus. Authors should balance density by reserving notes for essential expansions, avoiding over-footnoting that fragments attention or signals superficiality. In theses and dissertations, notes facilitate linkage to appendices, referencing extended datasets, raw transcripts, or procedural appendices (e.g., "See Appendix A for full survey instrument") to extend arguments without inflating the core document. A key challenge arises in scholarly journals with strict page limits, where long notes risk exceeding spatial constraints and delaying publication; editors often require relocating verbose content to appendices or supplementary online materials to maintain conciseness while preserving scholarly integrity. In government documents, notes serve to provide clarifications, statutory references, and data sources, ensuring precision in official reports and policies. For instance, the U.S. Federal Register employs numbered footnotes to denote amendments, corrections, or supplementary information, with references accessible via hover or click interactions in digital formats. The U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO) Style Manual specifies that footnotes in such documents use superscript numerals for references, placed at the bottom of the page separated by a 50-point rule, and formatted in 8-point font for standard 12-point text to maintain readability. In , notes adhere to conventions outlined in , where are the primary method for citing cases, statutes, and procedural explanations, promoting cross-references without disrupting the main text. This approach differs from academic styles by imposing stricter rigidity to avoid interpretive leeway, focusing instead on authoritative precision. For example, in contracts, footnotes elaborate on terms to prevent ambiguity, functioning similarly to "for the avoidance of doubt" clauses by clarifying specific provisions or exceptions. Standards for notes in government and legal documents emphasize clarity and public accessibility, particularly in digital formats. The U.S. Web Design System recommends fonts, such as Source Sans Pro, for notes in online government publications to enhance legibility and compliance with Section 508 accessibility guidelines. When handling , notes containing sensitive details are redacted using blackouts or exemptions, as per protocols from the , to protect while releasing declassified portions. In the , directives often utilize endnotes for multilingual translations and supplementary explanations, as guided by the European Commission's English Style Guide, which requires footnotes or endnotes to conclude with a and maintain consistent numbering for cross-lingual accuracy.

Digital Implementation

HTML and Web Standards

In web typography, notes are typically implemented using the <sup> element to render superscript markers, such as numbers or symbols, that link to the note content, adapting conventions from print superscript numbering for inline s. These markers often employ <a> tags with href attributes pointing to IDs in the note section, enabling bidirectional between the inline reference and the endnote or footnote. For enhanced styling, CSS properties like position: fixed are applied to note containers to create pop-up displays that overlay the page without disrupting the main flow. Accessibility standards, particularly the (WCAG) 2.2, emphasize compatibility for notes by recommending attributes such as aria-describedby to associate descriptive note content with its reference, ensuring that assistive technologies announce the note when the marker is focused. Additionally, semantic elements like <aside> are used for side notes, as they denote content indirectly related to the primary document flow, improving structure for both users and parsers. The role="note" attribute further aids in marking footnotes explicitly, aligning with WCAG success criteria for perceivable and operable content. Practical implementation often involves inline to make notes toggleable, where event listeners on superscript links dynamically show or hide the associated note content, providing an interactive experience without page reloads. However, responsive design presents challenges, as footnotes must reflow on mobile devices to avoid horizontal scrolling or truncation, requiring to adjust positioning and stacking for varying screen sizes while preserving WCAG reflow criteria. A prominent example is the software's footnote system, which uses the {{reflist}} template to generate a grouped list of references from inline <ref> tags, rendering them as a collapsible or scrollable section at the page bottom with automatic numbering and linking.

Other Digital Formats

In e-book standards such as 3.3, footnotes are typically implemented using anchors and bidirectional hyperlinks marked with the epub:type="footnote" attribute, enabling readers to tap superscripts for pop-up displays or navigation to note sections at chapter ends without disrupting reflowable layouts. This approach ensures and semantic structure, as recommended in the specification for content documents. Amazon's Kindle format supports similar bidirectional hyperlinks for footnotes and endnotes in reflowable books, where they appear as pop-ups on devices like the Kindle Paperwhite, with note text ideally placed at chapter or ends for optimal readability. Navigation relies on elements such as <aside epub:type="footnote"> to facilitate intelligent handling, including automatic conversion from Word documents during upload. Word processing software like allows users to insert footnotes or endnotes through the References tab, featuring automatic sequential numbering, restart options per section, and cross-references that update dynamically when notes are added or moved. In LaTeX, the \footnote{} command provides precise control over note placement at page bottoms, with built-in counters for numbering and options for customization via packages like footnote for handling multiple notes or hyperlinking. PDF documents distinguish between inline footnotes—embedded as elements during authoring, which preserve fixed positioning—and annotations such as added post-creation for collaborative markup, with the latter appearing as floating pop-ups in viewers like . In reflowable PDFs enabled by tagging, notes adapt to text resizing via dynamic structures, whereas fixed-layout PDFs maintain static footnote placement to mimic print .

Historical and Literary Aspects

Historical Development

The practice of adding notes to texts originated in and Roman scholarship, where scholia—marginal annotations providing explanations, variant readings, or commentaries—appeared as early as the BCE in works like the edited by Alexandrian scholars. These scholia were handwritten in the margins of scrolls or codices to aid interpretation without disrupting the primary text. By the medieval period, this evolved into glosses in illuminated manuscripts, where interlinear notes (inserted between lines) and marginal glosses expanded on legal, theological, or literary content, often using symbols like dots or letters to link them to specific passages. Such glosses became essential in monastic scriptoria for preserving and elucidating classical and biblical texts, with examples abundant in 12th-century glossed Bibles and manuscripts. The advent of printing in the 15th century facilitated more consistent note placement, though early works like the Gutenberg Bible of 1455 primarily featured wide margins for handwritten annotations rather than printed footnotes. Printed marginal notes standardized in scholarly editions by the late 15th and early 16th centuries, particularly in legal texts such as Edmund Plowden's Commentaries (first published 1571), where typographic innovations like Roman faces distinguished notes from main text to enhance readability in complex arguments. During the 16th century, early printers like Richard Jugge pioneered the placement of notes at the bottom of the page to better organize citations, marking a shift toward modern footnote structures. True footnotes—notes at the page bottom linked by symbols—emerged prominently in the late 17th century, pioneered by Pierre Bayle's Dictionnaire historique et critique (1697), which used them systematically to separate commentary from narrative and support scholarly claims. In the , style manuals began codifying note usage for clarity and uniformity, with Horace Hart's Rules for Compositors and Readers at the , (first edition 1893), providing guidelines on superscript numbers and footnote formatting that influenced British standards. The saw a shift toward endnotes in novels and non-scholarly works to maintain aesthetic page design, as printers favored uninterrupted text blocks, a trend evident in mid-century where were deemed intrusive. This evolution was partly driven by the rise of copyright laws, such as the British (1710), which emphasized proper attribution to protect . Precursors to digital notes appeared in the 1960s with hypertext systems, where Ted Nelson's Xanadu project (conceived 1960) envisioned linked annotations accessible nonlinearly, laying groundwork for modern hyperlinked footnotes in electronic texts.

Use as a Literary Device

In literature, footnotes have evolved from mere annotations to serve narrative and stylistic purposes, particularly in works that challenge conventional storytelling. Laurence Sterne's The Life and Opinions of Tristram , (1759–1767) pioneered this approach by employing footnotes to create digressive interruptions that disrupt linear reading and mimic the erratic flow of thought. Sterne's footnotes, often self-referential or tangential, foster a playful, anti-ideal reading process, contrasting with eighteenth-century expectations of orderly prose and emphasizing the novel's metafictional humor. In postmodern fiction, footnotes enhance unreliable narration and digression, as seen in David Foster Wallace's (1996), where over 388 endnotes expand the main text into a labyrinthine network of subplots and encyclopedic details. These notes, some spanning multiple pages, reflect the novel's themes of and while forcing readers to navigate physically between text and margins, blurring the boundaries between primary and supplementary content. Footnotes also produce stylistic effects like irony, humor, and metafictional complexity through contradictory or nested structures. In Mark Z. Danielewski's (2000), labyrinthine footnotes from multiple narrators—such as Zampanò's scholarly annotations and Johnny Truant's personal interjections—overlap in distinct fonts, creating a house-like that questions and authorial control. This technique generates humor via absurd scholarly pretensions and irony through unreliable layers that academic . Critics debate whether such uses distract from the or enrich interpretive depth, with some viewing as interruptions that break immersion (e.g., J.D. Salinger's dismissal of them as an "aesthetic evil"), while others praise their role in foregrounding textuality and encouraging active engagement. In 21st-century fiction, this experimentation extends to peritextual elements, where notes blend with digital-inspired forms to fragment narratives and heighten self-reflexivity, as in works parodying paratexts to explore unreliability and , for example in and Doug Dorst's S. (2013), which employs marginal notes to create layered, interactive narratives.

References

  1. https://printwiki.org/Footnote
  2. https://typographyforlawyers.com/footnotes.html
  3. https://urkesh.org/attach/Grafton1997.pdf
  4. https://www.c82.net/typography/term/foot-notes
  5. https://www.servicescape.com/blog/everything-you-need-to-know-about-footnotes
  6. https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/footnotes_and_endnotes.html
  7. https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/Documentation/faq0280.html
  8. https://www.w3.org/TR/epub-a11y-tech-12/
  9. https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html
  10. https://www.monotype.com/resources/punctuation-series-dagger-and-double-dagger
  11. https://readings.design/PDF/the_elements_of_typographic_style.pdf
  12. https://www.scribbr.com/chicago-style/footnotes/
  13. https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/chicago_manual_17th_edition/cmos_formatting_and_style_guide/general_format.html
  14. https://libguides.csuchico.edu/c.php?g=414275&p=2823088
  15. https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/chicago_manual_17th_edition/cmos_formatting_and_style_guide/chicago_manual_of_style_17th_edition.html
  16. https://cflibguides.lonestar.edu/chicago/paperformat
  17. https://libguides.mjc.edu/chicago/formatting
  18. https://owl.excelsior.edu/citation-and-documentation/chicago-style/chicago-manuscript-format/
  19. https://www.scribbr.com/chicago-style/format-paper/
  20. https://libguides.brown.edu/citations/styles
  21. https://library.cooper.edu/hss/citation
  22. https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/mla_endnotes_and_footnotes.html
  23. https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide/citation-guide-1.html
  24. https://www.scribbr.com/citing-sources/what-are-footnotes/
  25. https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/footnotes_appendices.html
  26. https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/uclrev/styleguide.html
  27. https://www.federalregister.gov/reader-aids/using-federalregister-gov/document-features-text
  28. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-STYLEMANUAL-2008/html/GPO-STYLEMANUAL-2008-17.htm
  29. https://guides.library.harvard.edu/law/bluebook
  30. https://www.adamsdrafting.com/footnotes-in-contracts/
  31. https://designsystem.digital.gov/components/typography/
  32. https://www.archives.gov/declassification/iscap/redaction-codes.html
  33. https://commission.europa.eu/system/files/2023-11/styleguide_english_dgt_en.pdf
  34. https://www.dhiwise.com/post/a-step-by-step-guide-to-adding-html-footnotes
  35. https://css-tricks.com/a-terrible-way-to-do-footnotes-in-html/
  36. https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG22/
  37. https://a11y.cafe/posts/footnotes
  38. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/40336366/in-line-footnotes-with-only-html-css-in-notes
  39. https://webaim.org/techniques/reflow/
  40. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Template:Reflist
  41. https://www.w3.org/TR/epub-33/
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  43. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/insert-footnotes-and-endnotes-61f3fb1a-4717-414c-9a8f-015a5f3ff4cb
  44. https://latexref.xyz/_005cfootnote.html
  45. https://ctan.org/pkg/footnote?lang=en
  46. https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/editing-document-structure-content-tags.html
  47. https://antigonejournal.com/2022/04/homer-iliad-scholia/
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  49. https://medievalbooks.nl/2014/12/19/the-medieval-origins-of-the-modern-footnote/
  50. https://sites.nd.edu/manuscript-studies/2015/09/17/reading-between-and-around-the-lines-an-introduction-to-glosses-and-commentaries/
  51. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Gutenberg-Bible
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  55. https://etd.ohiolink.edu/acprod/odb_etd/ws/send_file/send?accession=osu1125378621
  56. https://jipel.law.nyu.edu/copyright-in-the-texts-of-the-law-historical-perspectives/
  57. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/hypertext-history/
  58. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/laurence-sterne-and-the-eighteenthcentury-book/footnotes-and-catchwords/A979D33CFB68233958744205AF48D217
  59. https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/14724/1/251334.pdf
  60. https://lithub.com/the-fine-art-of-the-footnote/
  61. https://www.academia.edu/14690301/Paratexts_2_0_New_Perspectives_on_Twenty_First_Century_Literary_Narrative
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