Natural History of Serpents

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There are many different types of notes, including endnote, footnotes, and margin notes; each type note can serve a different purpose and has different advantages and disadvantages. An endnote is a note that appears at the end of a work and is organized sequentially in relation to where in the work the reference appears. While endnotes do not disrupt the reader or the layout of the page, the reader must flip or scroll to the end of the work in order to see the corresponding note. A footnote is a note placed at the bottom of the page corresponding to the item cited in the text above.[1] Footnotes are beneficial because the notes are easily located on the same page the reader is already looking at. However, this causes a major disadvantage: footnotes can clutter a page and negatively impact the visual. In many cases, footnotes may take up over half of the page.

Footnotes in the 1881 Harvard Edition of Julius Caesar

Margin notes are similar to footnotes in that the note also appears on the same page as the text being cited; however, margin notes appear in the margin of the page in a location corresponding to the point of the text cited. While margin notes are easier to follow than footnotes, they may waste much more physical space on the paper and change the layout of the page much more drastically. Footnotes are usually flagged by numbers in square brackets or superscript or symbols. Traditionally, the order of symbols went: asterisk (*), dagger (†), double dagger (‡), section sign (§), pipe (‖), pilcrow (¶), and, finally, manicule (☞).[2]

History & Uses

Harper & Brothers Revised Old Testament

The Furness Shakespeare collection

The Significance of the History of Early Chemistry

Footnotes in "The Significance of Early Chemistry" by Allen G. Debus in the Journal of World History, 1965


Notes

  1. USC Libraries Research Guide, Footnotes or Endnotes? https://libguides.usc.edu/writingguide/notes
  2. Sherman, William H. Toward a History of the Manicule. 2005 http://www.livesandletters.ac.uk/papers/FOR_2005_04_001.pdf