Note (typography)

A footnote is a note which will be outsourced in the print layout from the body text to make the text more readable liquid. A footnote is a "note, legend, Remarks, source details or further explanation of a text or image design".

Footnote and Endnote

Behind that word, the phrase or sentence which you want to give a note provides you a most superscript number ( "note number" ). This number refers to an initiated with the same number point at which the annotation text is available. That agency on the same page as the text of the footnote number, then one speaks of footnotes; with a reference to points at the end of a chapter or the whole work is called endnotes.

According to DIN 5008 footnotes with Arabic numerals or Roman numerals (V ) of all the pages are numbered consecutively across. If the entire text contains no more than three footnotes, special characters may be used ( such as asterisks ). Basically, they may be positioned at the end of the text just at the foot of a page and not arbitrary. You must be delimited from the preceding text by at least one blank line and the footnote separator line (underscore). It is not allowed to insert a picture in the footnote below, and thus at bottom of page. Also Endnotes are not permitted according to DIN 5008, but are often used in scientific publications, as ever, the DIN 5008 for this type of publication is not binding. Many publishers fear Footnotes also might act as a deterrent to a wider audience.

The totality of footnotes or endnotes of a work is referred to as footnotes, footnotes or scholarly apparatus, in contrast to the actual text, ie the representation. A footnote is only a pressure- technical means for realizing a comment and is not in itself evidence for the scientific substantiation of a text.

To develop the footnote noted the Berlin historian Götz Aly found that it stems " of the medieval Marginalistik, but it belongs in its modern form a national treasure who has always been a bit obsessive Germans. For the history of science, it has prevailed Leopold von Ranke with the intention of almost 200 years ago, this, the natural sciences equal to objectify ".

Footnotes and annotation characters in the text

Duden rule

Regarding the position of the footnote reference in the text (1 Spelling, 24th edition 2006, section " word processing and e-mails ", pages 108/109 band ) is executed in the dictionary: As footnotes and annotation characters are now almost only superscript numerals without parentheses usual.

Meeting with footnotes punctuation together, the following basic rule applies:

• If the footnote refers to the whole sentence, the paragraph is after the closing punctuation mark;
• If the footnote refers only to the immediately preceding word or the immediately preceding phrase, the figure stands before the closing punctuation mark.

Scientific journals

Renowned academic publishers such as Springer and Thieme place in their journals the references as footnotes but not to the end of the article. The references to it they put in square brackets on the base line and when meeting with a punctuation mark ever before this.