Notes are useful for providing additional information and citations at the bottom of a text page. Typically, editors will suggest putting parenthetical information in footnotes to keep the flow of prose intact. Used judiciously, the footnote can be a useful addition to text or a quick way to quote a quote.
Steps
Method 1 of 2: Use Footnotes for Quotes
Step 1. Write the bibliography of the cited works before putting the footnotes
A footnote is a shortened version of the quote at the end of the book. Whatever the note's content, however, is probably the last thing to do in writing a text. Write your full report, including a list of references, before entering your notes.
Step 2. Go to the end of the sentence you want to put notes on
In Microsoft Word, go to the References tab, click on the 'Footnotes' group and select 'Insert note'. A number "1" should appear to the right of the sentence and a number "1" will also appear at the bottom of the first page. In the footer, type the information you want to add.
- The cursor should be placed after any punctuation. The number that links at the bottom should appear outside the sentence, not inside it.
- If you don't know where to find the note entry menu in your word processing program, go to the Help menu and do a search before you start entering notes.
Step 3. Give the quote or reference
In case you want to use footnotes instead of parenthetical citations in the text, they should include: editor or author, title (in italics), compiler, translator, edition, series name (including volume number), place of publication, publisher and publication data, and the page numbers of the citation.
For example: Reginald Daily, Timeless wiki How Examples: Through the Ages (Minneapolis: St. Olaf Press, 2010), 115
Step 4. To enter the footnote for a website, you will need to enter the following information:
website author or editor, website title (in italics), URL and access date.
For example: Reginald Daily, Timeless wikiHow Examples, https://www.timelesswikihowexamples.html (accessed 22 July 2011)
Step 5. Continue writing additional notes to your article or essay
Go to each location where you referred to another source and repeat this process. In subsequent notes about the same source, use an abbreviated version of the quote. You will need to write the name of the author or editor, an abbreviated title (in italics) and the page number (s).
Regardless of which style you use, the use of footnotes does not replace the need for a final list of references in the article, even if they are made superfluous. Include an MLA page with the cited works and a bibliography for an APA style sheet
Method 2 of 2: Use Footnotes to Clarify Information
Step 1. Add notes that clarify the sources to the reader
Instead of including publication information about sources in their notes, writers often put additional notes or loosely related information, often gleaned from other resources not directly cited. David Foster Wallace, in his long-running novel 'Infinite Jest', made use of long notes as pages to play a kind of joke. In academic writing, this should be used sparingly, but the use is common in memoirs or other styles of non-fictional prose.
By scientific writing conventions, they often insert into the notes of additional research studies that have come to similar conclusions, but which were not directly cited in the study
Step 2. Be brief
If a study cited a source who talked about wikiHow articles and you wanted to clarify it, the note after the issue might look like this: "WikiHow examples are used to clarify text in situations where it would be useful to have a visual cue. Reginald Daily, Timeless wikiHow Examples: Through the Ages (Minneapolis: St Olaf Press, 2010), 115."
Step 3. Use these types of notes sparingly
Long explanatory notes are distracting to the reader. If you find yourself with a lot of additional information that you need to put in footnotes, consider finding a place for them in the text or otherwise revising the article or essay.
Editors often recommend that all information included in parentheses in an academic piece be put in the footnotes instead. Consider the progression of the prose, the "flow" of the writing, and see if any of the engravings might look better at the bottom of the page
Step 4. Double check that a note is appropriate
Before using notes to refer to sources, check with your editor to make sure you must use them. The MLA or APA guidelines generally prefer the citation of a source in the text in brackets, rather than a note and limit the latter to additional information or alternative references to the information itself. Notes should only be used when needed.
