Omi’s entry about footnotes in blogs got me thinking. To start off, I don’t like them, but not to the point where I’d stop reading an entry on principle. It merely annoys me. However, I usually don’t have a problem with footnotes in print so it got me thinking.

The reason is that in blog entry (especially for long entries), footnotes are not footnotes, but they act more like endnotes and I certainly don’t like them. I’ve broken this entry into footnotes and endnotes to demonstrate (works best on resolutions of 1024×768 and up). Like some written books that use both footnotes and endnotes, footnotes are denoted with superscripted symbols like “*” and endnotes are denoted with superscripted numbers. Here’s an example* and here’s example1.

* of a footnote.:P

So what’s the difference I’m harking about? Well I think it comes down to reading flow. With written material, I personally don’t mind footnotes at all, and they can give interesting but tangential information from the rest of the content.$ However, to agree with many Uni lecturers, I too cannot stand, and usually do not bother with reading endnotes. Endnotes are notes at the end of the book, and are used mainly for citing references and things as people would only flip to the back, look for an end note, if they want to read further on the topic. I think the most obvious reason is that to flip around, even if you can mark your page, would nonetheless annoyingly interrupt one’s reading. However, citing things on the internet is as easy as using a link to the citation which both looks neat and could be found easily nested in the content.2

$Like many Discworld books by Terry Pratchet <3<3.

Which brings me to using footnotes on blog entries. If you want footnotes to really act like a footnote, I think it would really only work on shortish entries or if you want to break up an entry as awkwardly as I’ve done here (very much not recommended), so that readers don’t lose where they are as much. The longer your entry and the more scrolling up and down a reader has to go through, the more annoying it becomes. Unlike book pages which are usually limited to be no bigger than A4 size, blog entries can really span downwards really quickly. Of course, all these problems can be minimised by simply using brackets# (so you can ramble as tangentially as you like, with the reader choosing to simply skim around the brackets if they don’t want to read it yet, or simply read it right after the content)! Everyone wins!3

#Also known as “parentheses”

Endnotes

1 of an endnote. :)
2As opposed to have to write them elsewhere in a book in this form: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperlink
3 In the spirit of referencing things, footnote style, more information about footnotes and endnotes can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endnotes