What Are Footnotes?
Footnotes are used for two purposes - to cite the ideas from other sources inserted in academic papers and add some information or comments to the text that do not comply with the flow of the main passage. As the name suggests, these notes are placed at the bottom of the page. They are referred to in the text with the help of superscript numbers. Sometimes, other symbols or letters are used for this purpose. When you use Google Docs or Word, footnotes are inserted automatically.
You need to understand the difference between footnotes and endnotes. Endnotes are placed together at the end of the entire text, while footnotes appear on every page. Endnotes are preferable if you do not want your text to look cluttered. However, they are often inconvenient for readers.
Inserting Footnotes in Google Docs and Word
How to Number and Locate Footnotes
You have to use the numbers of the notes in the order they appear in the text. Never use the same number when you want to cite the same source. All note numbers have to be unique and consecutive.
Place the number for a footnote at the end of the sentence or passage that needs citing. You can use any punctuation mark at the end of the clause before a footnote number, but for an em dash. Then, the number will stand before this dash. You should not make a space before the number, either.
" Samba " refers to a few Latin dance styles that originated in the Congo and Angola¹, while other sources refer back to the festival of dances performed by slaves in Bahia that were called “Samba.”²
How to Use Footnotes in Chicago Style?
Here, footnotes are applied for citation or adding some extra information. It may be a commentary on the source or your considerations about some point in the text. You place a footnote at the end of a sentence, phrase, or passage you are citing. The footnote should display the full information about the source when you cite it for the first time and the shortened variant when you continue citing the same source.
Throughout the first half of the novel, Stretcher has grown increasingly open and at ease in Europe.¹ We can find a lot of other quotations demonstrating this ease and openness alongside the strong desire to draw readers’ attention to social problems.²
- Henry James, The Ambassadors (Rockville: Serenity, 2009), 34-40.
- James, The Ambassadors, 58.
You will provide complete information in a bibliography that goes after the main text. You can also use footnote citations only if your paper is short and your academic instructions allow it.
Remember!
Even if you use the automatic footnote processor, the Chicago style requires making some changes manually. They refer to such details as:
- adding the indent before the number at the beginning of each note;
- writing the number in normal text (not subscript) at the beginning of the note, followed by a period and a space;
- leaving one spare line between footnotes;
- making all footnotes single-spaced.
How to Format Footnotes in APA?
The APA style does not need citation footnotes because all the information about the source is provided in in-text parenthetical citations. However, you may need footnotes here to provide some additional information about the source or idea.
It may include clarifications and examples, too. However, you have to be careful about including non-essential information. You can also include footnotes in this style formatting to provide copyright attribution.
Journalists examined - over several years¹ - the ancient tools used in photojournalism.²
- ¹ See Lawcast (2015), especially chapter 3, for additional information about this interesting theory.
- ² From the chapter “Photojournalism and Its Types” J. Hunson and P. Blake, 2011, What Is Journalism, 34, p. 132. Copyright 2010 by Copyright Holder. Reprinted with permission.
While using the word processing software for automatic footnote formation, do not forget to follow some APA recommendations. You need to use an indent at the beginning of every note if you have not got it from your automated footnote formation. Mind that footnotes start with a superscript number and a space after it in this style.
Using Footnotes in MLA
MLA also uses in-text citations that are placed in parentheses. However, if you use a lot of quotes within the text, it may look cluttered. So, you can palace some citations in the footnotes. This technique is also used to add some extra information, explanations, examples, or elaborations of ideas.
Catharine’s gender and utter helplessness should not immediately remind us of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719), in spite of the resonance between the works’ titles (Magyarody 316).¹
- ¹ See Defoe, Daniel, The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner. The Novels of Daniel Defoe, edited by W.R. Owens, vol.1, Pickering & Chatto, 2008. Further references are to this edition as they appear in the text.
The footnotes in MLA can be formatted automatically. However, the formatting requirements are to make the numbers at the numbers at the beginning of the note superscript and make a space after the numbers. You should also add an indent at the beginning before the number.
Final Thoughts
Footnotes are widely used in academic papers in Chicago, MLA, and APA citation styles. You need them to give credit to the sources used in the paper's main text or add some extra information about the source or idea, explain something, or illustrate it with examples.
You must be attentive while formatting footnotes because you should follow the style’s requirements and recommendations. Formatting footnotes automatically in Word or Google Docs is a great option. However, you need to check whether all the style requirements are observed in such formatting and add something important by hand.
Properly formatted footnotes add some appeal to the entire paper, and you have a good chance that your professor will like your diligence and your academic scores will be higher.