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9.18 Reference Notes, General

Reference notes may be found within a text (in-text notes), but are usually presented at the foot of a page (footnotes) or at the end of a chapter or document (endnotes). Reference notes pertain to works that have been directly cited or paraphrased, whereas a bibliography lists the works consulted. Footnotes and endnotes are generally referenced by means of a raised (superscript) numeral, letter or symbol immediately following the item in question. The superscript follows all punctuation marks except the dash:

  • As Kenneth Dyer points out in a recent article,1 the ambassador’s criticism of the countries involved2—India, Pakistan and Bangladesh—upset a number of delegates.

The principal differences between notes and bibliographies are as follows:

  • Reference note entries are numbered.
  • The author’s name is not inverted.
  • Components of the entries are separated by commas rather than periods, and there is a space but no punctuation between the title and the opening parenthesis before the publication information.
  • The publication data is placed within parentheses.
  • Page numbers indicate the exact position of the citation.

9.23 Footnotes

If only a few notes are required in an article or chapter and the note material is succinct, use the footnote format. A footnote may do more than simply refer the reader to another work or page for further information; it may give information on how facts presented in the text were ascertained or confirmed. Such a note is useful for conveying supplementary data, as in the following example:

In the United States, by contrast, approximately 49% of psychologists name either teaching or research as their principal activity, compared with only 31% for service functions.1 Table 15 shows the numbers and proportions of English- and French-speaking2 Canadians and of American and other foreign respondents in each of the principal work functions. It is estimated that 13–14% of Canadian psychologists are French-speaking.3

_______________

  • Back to the note1 1986 National Register of Scientific and Technical Personnel.
  • Back to the note2 French-speaking Canadians were identified by their request for or return of the French version of the questionnaire. Further identification and response rates were confirmed through follow-up telephone contacts with non-residents (see Appendix 3).
  • Back to the note3 But see discussion by Dr. Bélanger on p. 127.

Number your footnotes page by page or chapter by chapter and thereby avoid the possibility of triple-digit references.

Occasionally two distinct series of footnotes are required: an author’s notes on the one hand and a translator’s or editor’s notes on the other. Use asterisks and a different typeface for the translator’s or editor’s notes, which should end with the appropriate abbreviation (Trans. or Ed.):

  • *The "commission" referred to is the Canada Labour Relations Board (Ed.).

Use special symbols or letters to indicate notes within the body of mathematical, statistical and other scientific documents, and particularly with tables and graphs, as illustrated below, since superscript numerals could be confused with mathematical indices:

  1990 1995 2000ª
Haiti 35 19 2
Canadab 1080 920 3005

ª projected
b including Quebec