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How to Do Footnotes

Footnotes and endnotes give credit to sources of information that has been summarized, paraphrased, or borrowed in any way in an article. They refer readers to the specific location of the material recorded in the references or bibliography section of a publication. Footnotes are placed numerically in the footer of the page where the direct citation is made. Endnotes are different because they are placed at the end of a publication on their own separate page, entitled 'Endnotes' or simply 'Notes'.

Things You'll Need

  • Word processor
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Instructions

    • 1

      Place a superscripted numeral directly at the end of your citation, in the main body of text in your article. This number will correspond with the footnotes in the article's footer, at the bottom of the page. The counting system should begin with 1, and increment each time a new citation or reference is made. The first citation on each individual page restarts the counting system, so as to not confuse the reader. For example, "As a heretofore unknown amalgam of the most unalike of America's historic undesirables, he now made sense."1

    • 2

      In the page's footer, write your footnote consisting of only one sentence. The footnote begins with a superscripted numeral that corresponds with the citation in the article. Add a space, and then type the name of the author you're citing. If this is the first time in your publication that this information source has been referenced, add the title of the work, the publisher and publishing date in brackets, the page number where the citation is found, and then end the footnote with a period. An example of a footnote corresponding with the previous citation would appear 1 Philip Roth, The Human Stain (Vintage, 2001) 132.

    • 3

      Format the footnotes by indenting the first footnote by one tab or five spaces from the document's left margin. All subsequent footnotes on this page should not be indented, however each line should be double-spaced. Order your footnotes and endnotes consecutively.

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