“When thumbing a book” says Hugh Harrington, in the Journal of the American revolution, “and contemplating a purchase, I thumb from the back.” He is looking for an index, preferably, and footnotes or endnotes, most definitely. In fact, he goes so far as to say he will replace the book on its shelf for the sole reason of there being no footnotes.1
Fiction or not, footnotes have a special place in literature — and a practical one too. But I happen to like them on the web for reasons of my own.
1.
First of all, a little declaration: when I say footnotes, I really refer to all forms of notes, including endnotes, NB etc. Generally anything written either parenthetical or in addition to the main body of text.
The usual grind: as said, footnotes are a form of mentioning the extras. Footnotes in particular are for immediate reference, lying right beneath the page; endnotes are a little more time– and effort–consuming, but suitable for lengthier prose.2
On the other side, while footnotes break the flow of the page, endnotes maintain it. The balance between the convenience of unbroken reading and convenience of quick referring is something we must decide about.
Footnotes are meant not only to cite sources of claims but also to serve as marginalia for the author to voice his opinion. If a book is not about the author’s opinion, especially, footnotes play a key role in giving the author a voice. They also help the author add perspective; sometimes scientific studies, linked and cited even, may not be all they seem — they may earn a new, different meaning in the context of this particular writing. While I cannot point out at the moment (so feel free to take this with a grain of salt) I vaguely remember authors in fiction using footnotes to give an extremely condensed backstory, which I appreciate as well as oppose, in a way.3
2.
On the web, however, the line between footnotes and endnotes blurs. Since the web is home to articles (as opposed to books) and there are no pages, endnotes and footnotes are effectively the same thing — and I, for one, prefer the term footnotes.
There are multipage articles, but I have not come across separate, page–wise footnotes or article endnotes being used predominantly on the web. I like John Gruber’s footnotes best; on Daring Fireball4 he uses the same kind of footnotes I use here, but the outward appearance is not what I speak of, because most footnotes look the same. On the backend, Daring Fireball’s markup is a simple double parenthesis which parses into a footnote. The rest of it works the same as on this site.5
Footnote love gets weird too (like everything in this world, there are extremist footnote lovers). I too love footnotes, but not as much S.E. Smith, who got n.b. permanently tattooed on herself. At the end of the day, footnotes are simply answers to either, “How do you know that?” or “Wait, does that mean… What does that mean, again?” You get the point. A footnotes opens further doors for exploration; every book is an exploration in itself, and footnotes are a furthering of that exploration.
3.
David Foster Wallace6 jokingly says n.b. means by the way, which it positively does not, but when you think about it, every single instance of n.b. can effectively be re–read as by the way, although this would admittedly take away a lot of the weightage.7
Another addition, on the web, is that footnotes allow you to helpfully link to asides that may not be mainstream links from your article. They also allow you to give a proper, extended credit to a person or website, like they deserve — more than just a passing mention as a phrase in one corner of a sentence. And return to the point where you were reading. John Gruber helpfully mentions that you can use your browser’s back button to return to the place where you were reading, but this is not immediately apparent to your everyday reader because they have not gone anywhere to go back. But we are further enough in technology so we can go back to where we started with a simple “↩” link. Try it.8
The unicode hook/arrow symbol too comes courtesy of Daring Fireball.9 It is now a somewhat unspoken standard around the web. In any case, that’s why I love footnotes. They are a lot of things, like a weapon every writer wields for the benefit of their readers. And the best part is you can use it to make reading your work a lot more rewarding.
- It might be apt to mention that he is talking of non–fiction (historic?) literature, not just any book. ↩
- Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace has over 400 endnotes averaging a few pages each. ↩
- Sometimes long drawn backstories can be a bore, but well–written backstories can add a lot to the main text and indeed should be part of the main text. ↩
- I confess I still have no idea what Daring Fireball is all about, but it’s constantly a fun read. Apparently it’s a company, The Daring Fireball Company LLC. ↩
- For the curious, my website backend does not use double parenthesis, but numbered square brackets. I use John Watson’s FD Footnotes. ↩
- See footnote 2. ↩
- Reddit discussed this long ago in its characteristic overly thought–out fashion. ↩
- Tried it? Now go back to where you were. ↩
- I like how, in his original article introducing footnotes, John Gruber calls it a weblog post. It’s form 2005. ↩
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