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Footnotes (including citations at the bottom of each page) have not gone entirely the way of the dinosaurs. In fact it is ironic that footnotes were declared outmoded just before the era of the word-processors which make using footnotes so much easier. Still, because of its relative ease in both writing and reading, parenthetical documentation is greatly preferred by most instructors.

Endnotes (gathering citations and reference lists at the end of each chapter or at the end of the paper) have enjoyed a popularity among academic writers, primarily because they make the transition from a submitted manuscript to published resource so much easier. Even so, parenthetical documentation has supplanted both footnotes and endnotes in most academic disciplines.

For writers in some disciplines, however - mostly notably in some of the humanities disciplines such as music, art, religion, theology, and even (sometimes) history - footnotes are still widely in use. A wise student will check with his or her instructor to make sure that parenthetical documentation is an acceptable method of citing resources.

Using either footnotes or endnotes, writers refer their readers to citations and reference lists by means of a number at the end of a sentence, phrase or clause containing the language or idea requiring citation. The number appears as a superscript.¹⁵ No space appears between the period and the superscript number. There should be four spaces between the last line of text and the first footnote on each page. Footnotes should be first-line indented and single-spaced with a double-space between each footnote. If necessary, a footnote can be carried into a subsequent page. In that event, on the second page, create a solid line two spaces below the last line of text, include another double-space and then finish the footnote. Double-space before the next footnote.

Footnotes and endnotes appear with their corresponding superscript number and are written with the first line indented. The author's name will appear in normal order (not reversed), separated from the other information with a comma. Publication data (City: Press, year) appears in parentheses, and no period is used until the very end of the citation.

        ¹⁰Ronald E. Pepin, Literature of Satire in the Twelfth Century (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 1988) 78.

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