August 7, 2010

Conventions in footnoting for essays, papers and books.

©Werner Hammerstingl, 1998, 2010

Footnotes and Endnotes. While both,footnotes and endnotes, can be used interchangeably to some extent, the ultimate guide for choosing one over the other should be the readers experience. Footnotes/endnotes are frequently the optimal solution for a free-flowing text which might be supported by more detail available in an endnote or footnote. This is especially the case where insertion of a direct quotation in the body of the text is not appropriate. In cases where a report or article contains an excecutive report I'd suggest the writer follow the logic that an executive report might be seperated from the main report and the former should therefore use footnotes and the latter endnotes. To avoid any confusion between the two, one might use Roman and the other Arabic numerals.

USE OF IBID.: When references to the same work follow each other without any intervening references even though they are separated by several pages, the abbreviation ibid. (for the Latin ibidem, "in the same place") is used to repeat the preceding reference. Any changes in volume and/or page numbers must be indicated following ibid. However, if the reference is to the same volume and page number(s) as the preceding references then nothing follows ibid. Ibid. may not be used to repeat part of a preceding reference.

USE OF OP. CIT.: Reference to a work which has already been cited in full form but not in the reference immediately preceding should include the author,s last name (but not his/her first name or initials unless two authors by the same last name have already been mentioned in the paper), and the abbreviation op.cit. from the Latin opere citato ("in the work cited"). In most entries' op. cit. is followed by the page designation

USE OF LOC. CIT.: Loc. cit. (for the Latin loco citato' "in the place cited',) is used in lieu of ibid. when the reference is not only to the work immediately preceding but also refers to the same page. Loc. cit. is also used in lieu of op. cit. when reference is made to a work previously cited and to the same page in that work. Hence, loc. cit. is never followed by volume and/or page numbers. When it takes the place of ibid., loc. cit. is capitalized.

Bibliography
The typical convention for bibliographies is as follows: Surname, Initial/s. Title (underlined) Publisher, Publishing location, Year of publication.
In practice this would look like:
Jürgens, M.C. The Digital Print Identification and Preservation The Getty Conservation Institute, Los Angeles, 2009

Many writers are now quoting online resources in addition to printed references, therefore the bibliographic reference style should be expanded to use URL's.
Many online resouces provide no reference to authorship, place of publication (in itself a problematic concept in an oline context) but perhaps a specific date of publication. It would look like this when included in a bibliography:
[Author(s) not cited] Kiama Council with Innovative New Waste Minimisation System Paper to Paper International Pty Ltd 13.9.2007 http://www.papertopaper.com.au/site/news.php?pID=94&articleID=23such

Ordering a Bibliography:
In the absence of any other styleguide provided by the publisher, the following order is suggested. All entries are alphabtically ordered by Surname of Author.


The sequence is as follows:
    Global references texts such as dictionaries, encyclopedias, translation manuals etc
    Books
    Refereed Journals
    Journals
    Refereed reports
    Reports
    Papers
    Letters and diaries
    Newspapers
    Radio and TV productions
    Websites, Blogs etc
    Other