OBTW
John Quiggin uses a particularly amusing example to call for An End to Endnotes. Personally, I like them, and not least for the potential irony value, like that in John’s example. I get a little disappointed by endnotes that are only references. But what I most dislike are endnotes that are almost all mere references except for maybe one meaty codicil per chapter, because I either want to know I have to flip to the back every time I hit a superscript, or I want to know I can wait until later.
Comment by ambivalentmaybe —
November 27, 2006 @ 8:50 am
If you want to do away with endnotes, fine–convert them to footnotes. They preserve the space for parenthetical comments or boring-but-necessary documentation, but you can refer to them quickly, just by glancing down to the bottom of the page.
Comment by Andrew Edwards —
November 27, 2006 @ 8:53 am
Made me think of reading Infinite Jest and needing to have a separate bookmark to show where I was in David Foster Wallace’s long essay-like endnotes. They were often, I found, the best parts.
Comment by derek —
November 27, 2006 @ 12:41 pm
What you need, I think, from an information design point of view, is references and endnotes as two separate categories of comment, and a way of determining at a glance which is which.
Either the superscripted numbers should have different appearances (one regular and the other italic) or have the letter R or N beforehand, R1, N1, R2, etc.
Comment by Mr. Obscura —
November 27, 2006 @ 8:39 pm
Footnotes I read as I see them referenced. Endnotes I read after I have read the main text. This occurs whether the notes are interesting asides or references, but I only read the references if I’m interested in following up on them. I would prefer to see references in footnotes, and asides in endnotes. I used to write reports for an organization that used footnotes exclusively, and the aside footnotes sometimes covered half the page, which is a Bad Idea.
Comment by Bruce Baugh —
November 28, 2006 @ 1:47 am
If the footnotes are taking up that much space they ought to be folded into the main text, or so my profs argued. They held to a consensus that more than about one interesting aside per chapter indicated that you’d failed to properly organize your material.
Comment by colin roald —
November 28, 2006 @ 3:38 pm
Unless you are Terry Pratchett.