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But let him take sections here and there, and in an appendix show the critic how it is being done.

For instance, let a man who writes history as it should be written - with all the physical details in evidence, the weather, the dress, colors, everything - write on for the pleasure of his reader and not for his critic. "et a man put his foot-notes in very small print indeed at the end of a volume, and, if necessary, let him give specimens rather than a complete list. (Noel Coward made the same point more memorably when he remarked that having to read a footnote resembles having to go downstairs to answer the door while in the midst of making love.)" References detract from the illusion of veracity and immediacy. "More than one recent critic has pointed out that footnotes interrupt a narrative. If you cite the same text again, you can shorten subsequent notes: 5. The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 623.

I hardly need to add that in this vale of tears failure is sometimes unavoidable."Īll notes have the same general form: 1. One should regard them as symbols of failure. Hence my rule of thumb for footnotes is exactly the same as that for parentheses. "What, after all, is a content footnote but material that one is either too lazy to integrate into the text or too reverent to discard? Reading a piece of prose that constantly dissolves into extended footnotes is profoundly disheartening. " Copyright permission footnotes acknowledge the source of lengthy quotations, scale and test items, and figures and tables that have been reprinted or adapted." " Content footnotes supplement or simplify substantive information in the text they should not include complicated, irrelevant, or nonessential information.".In a work containing many long footnotes, it may be difficult to fit them onto the pages they pertain to, especially in an illustrated work."