User:Chris Chittleborough/FootnotesWikipediaEtc

Since printing became common, scholars have developed a variety of ways of annotating their writing with references, etc. People writing HTML documents for the world wide web have similar requirements, , but no consensus has yet developed about how to annotate HTML in this way. Wikipedia

Annotation Content

Let's try and analyze the kinds of things writers put in annotations.

References

Writers frequently need to refer to book, paper, newspaper item, web page, etc. They may be using it as an authority, telling readers where to go for more information, telling readers where to get another view of a dispute, and so on.

Extra Details

A writer may want to provide detail that is only interesting, intelligible or relevant to some of her readers. For instance, "Walter Russell Mead uses the term Jacksonian for this group", or "I thank Prof. Richard Jones for this insight".

Material added after the main text was written

For instance, "Later experiments have shown that a = 5.4 ± 0.2".

Annotation Methods

Footnotes

In printed media, a footnote consists of a symbol (eg., "*", "††") or a superscript number paired with the same symbol or number, followed by text, at the bottom of the page.

Advantages in print:

• The casual reader can easily ignore the symbols and the material at the bottom of the page.
• The thorough reader can see the entire footnote without (eg.) paging to the end of the book or chapter, reading the note, then trying to find the original page again.

Disadvantages in print:

• Lenghty footnotes may spill over

Impossible in HTML:

• HTML documents don't have pages when viewed (or heard) in browsers. (Although HTML documents are called web pages, most interesting documents are too long enough to fit in a browser window without scrolling.)

Endnotes