A footnote is a note of text placed at the bottom of a page in a book or document.[1] The note can provide an author's comments on the main text or citations of a reference work in support of the text, or both. A footnote is normally flagged by a superscripted number immediately following that portion of the text the note is in reference to.
- The first idea1 for the first footnote on the page, the second idea2 for the second footnote, and so on.
Occasionally a number between brackets or parentheses is used instead, thus: [1]. Typographical devices such as the asterisk (*) or dagger (†) may also be used to point to footnotes; the traditional order of these symbols is *, †, ‡, §, ‖, ¶.[2] In documents like timetables, many different symbols, as well as letters and numbers, may be used to refer the reader to particular footnotes.
Endnotes are similar to footnotes, but instead of appearing at the foot of the page they are collected together at the end of the chapter or at the end of the work. They do not affect the image of the page, but may cause inconvenience for the reader who has to move back and forth between the main text and the endnotes, especially if each chapter begins again with number 1.
The U.S. Government Printing Office Style Manual devotes six pages to the topic of footnotes.[3] NASA has guidance for footnote usage in its historical documents.[4]
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