The Art of the Footnote

Book excerpt: The Art of the Footnote reacquaints students and writers with the footnote as the most effective method for presenting all of the information that is necessary to make every manuscript lucid for every reader. This book shows why footnotes are valuable, even essential, as a part of writing in the context of the scientific and historical methods of research; how easy it is to become thoroughly familiar with the various types of notes and when to employ them; and how to create footnotes which are both clear and helpful to the reader. This book will be helpful in writing undergraduate term papers to large monographs because it describes specific cases in which footnoting is appropriate and it illustrates those with examples drawn from a variety of writings.