Dear Gunnar, Don, and All,

From last week’s thread, I thought a few more words on footnotes might be useful. The matter of footnotes is more than a matter of technology. Nevertheless, understanding the technology of footnotes in different eras will clarify the fact that technological evolution and change did not drive the evolution or form of footnotes.

Footnotes and other forms of reference serve important purposes. These are not mythic customs of a quasi-religious nature, but useful tools in research communication.

First, let me address the issues that came up here regarding technology. While I appreciate the intention of Gunnar’s two comments on footnotes, I am going to take mild exception to his comments on the technology of the hand-set letterpress footnote [1, below]. I will also comment on the second note with respect to voices. I agree on the concept of multiple voices, but I think a key nuance on referencing needs clarification [2, below].

Terry’s description with respect to hammering footnotes in would, as stated, lead to a physical disaster. But even were it generally possible in the way that Gunnar rephrased it, it is not plausible. Authors did not manage footnotes this way in the letterpress era [see 1].

Authors delivered a complete manuscript to a publisher or printer. The manuscript included the material to appear in the footnotes. Authors did amend the text when editing and proofreading the typeset manuscript – they did not generally add footnotes at that stage. Whether or not a page had wide margins with room for added notes, most authors prepared their notes at the time of writing.

A review of footnote practices shows that even wide margins or space at the bottom of a page would not generally have been enough for serious annotation of the kind that accompanied a manuscript. Many footnotes required too much space. And the space used at the sides, top, and bottom of a printed page was generally uniform. Letterpress typesetting placed footnotes within the printing space. When a page had no footnotes, the printer filled the available space with ordinary narrative text. There was no leftover space for type to be set as an afterthought.

It may sometimes have been technically possible to insert brief footnotes to typeset manuscripts in fields that used short notes and citations. Short citations are common in fields typified by well-established discourse communities in which everyone knows the text well. This is common for Biblical references in theology – for example, 1 Kings 14:10 or 1 Kings 14:10 KJV. Another case is references to Shakespeare – Henry V, IV, 3, lines 112-119. Legal research developed in a similar way. Much of this had to do with the basis of law in precedent that requires reference to court reports or in codified law and legislative documents. Most law offices required a law library, and aspiring lawyers worked for lawyers or judges in the days before law schools, learning to practice law by clerking and by reading law. Like Bible references, law citations have a common short form. American examples are, for instance: U.S. CONST. art. VI, §2; 103 S. Ct. 2017 (1983); Fed. R. Civ. P. 56 (c); British examples are: Pepper v Hart [1993] AC 593 (HL) or R (Roberts) v Parole Board [2004] EWCA Civ 1031, [2005] QB 410; and Scottish examples are: Hughes v Stewart 1907 SC 791; or Corcoran v HM Advocate 1932 JC 42.

Law journals also use short-form citations -- 97 Harv. L. Rev 4 (1983); 17 Yale J.L. & Human. 18 2005. These kinds of references refer to common sources in the sense that all members of a community know and use them, and where they do not use them, the form of the reference instructs potential readers on how to find and use them.

The situation is different in broader fields of scholarship or references to a text that we cannot assume to be common. It is also different in fields where an author recognizes that the document may speak to scholars from other communities.

Most important, the situation is different for classical footnotes in which description, discussion, and commentary are likely to accompany the reference citation. This was frequent in early books, particularly in fields such as philosophy, theology, philology, history, or classics. Footnotes formed a significant part of the scholarly apparatus in these books. Scholars prepared their notes with the main text, and printers set the footnotes at the same time they set the book. This was not an afterthought and it did not arise from a technological workaround design to account for afterthoughts.

To get an idea of what footnotes would once have entailed and how carefully planned they would have been, see Henri de Lubac’s (1998, 2000, 2009) three-volume masterpiece on medieval exegesis. (You can use the preview function on Amazon books to see a few sample pages of de Lubac.)

One of the most famous examples of an author using footnotes is that of Edward Gibbon’s (1906) Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, from the second volume on. Gibbon used endnotes in the first edition of the first volume, moving them to a place of prominence afterward. As well as making the sources clear for those who wished to read them, Gibbon’s footnotes served as a counterpoint to the main narrative. To me, Gibbon’s notes serve several functions – carrying Gibbon’s personal voice beneath the text while the main narrative carries the magisterial voice of an historian. Without wishing to stretch a metaphor too far, the masterful use of footnotes can resemble the bass line on the foot pedals of an organ.

If you haven’t read Gibbon, you can see how this works by downloading a volume of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall in PDF format, reproduced from an edition of the early 1900s –

http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Fperson=4084&Itemid=28

Properly used, footnotes open a world of information to the reader. Before going further, I should note that I am not suggesting people move to footnotes or use footnotes. I’m simply pointing to their virtues and possibilities with respect to voice and commentary. There are many ways to manage reference and citation, an issue I will address in another post.

To read a masterful contemporary use of footnotes, I’d suggest reading Robert Cover’s (1983) “Nomos and Narrative.” Cover links and bridges multiple traditions – from Peter Berger and Michael Polanyi to the Oresteia and the Mishnah, not to mention Clifford Geertz and Martin Heidegger. I’ve posted Cover’s masterpiece of legal and cultural hermeneutics to my Academia page along with the professorial at URL:

http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman

While footnotes have many uses, the essential use of footnotes or other systems is that of referencing the evidence that we use to support an argument. Gertrude Himmelfarb (1991) wrote a fascinating essay in the New York Times about the uses and value of footnotes.

“… the rules governing footnotes (that there would be footnotes goes without question) are a warrant, if not of righteousness, then of accountability. They are meant to permit the reader - the scholarly as well as the lay reader - to check the author’s sources, facts, inferences, and generalizations, and to do so as easily as possible. This is the rationale for the seemingly arbitrary rules; in prescribing the exact form and sequence in which the required data are to be communicated, they make it more likely that the data will be fully and accurately communicated and that lapses will be readily discerned.

“This is why an annotated bibliography at the end of the book or each chapter is no substitute for footnotes; they attest to the author’s erudition but do not provide the means of verifying specific quotations or assertions. It is also why endnotes are less satisfactory than footnotes; remote from the text, the citations are apt to be less precise and less pertinent.

“Even the most zealous footnoter would concede that footnotes are only a partial guarantee of integrity and accountability. They make it possible to determine whether a quotation has been accurately transcribed and whether the source contains the facts attributed to it, but not whether the quotation or source is itself accurate, adequate, or relevant. They do, however, make it easier for a diligent reader to judge its accuracy, adequacy, and relevance. And they make it a little harder for authors (not impossible, authors being notably ingenious and not notably scrupulous) to distort the sources or deviate too far from them. If they do not quite put the fear of God in scholars, they do make them more fearful than they might otherwise be of colleagues so inconsiderate and untrusting as to check their citations and actually read their sources.”

Been thinking on this for a couple days – let me post this and return later with the rest of my thoughts.

Yours,

Ken

Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished Professor | Swinburne University of Technology | Melbourne, Australia | [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> | Mobile +61 404 830 462 | Home Page http://www.swinburne.edu.au/design/people/Professor-Ken-Friedman-ID22.html<http://www.swinburne.edu.au/design>    Academia Page http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman About Me Page http://about.me/ken_friedman

Guest Professor | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China

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References

Cover, Robert M. 1983. “The Supreme Court, 1982 Term -- Foreword: Nomos and Narrative.” Faculty Scholarship Series. Paper 2705. URL:
http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/fss_papers/2705
Also available at URL:
http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman

Gibbon, Edward. 1906 [1776, 1781, 1788-89]. Works of Edward Gibbon. The History of Rome. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. New York: Fred DeFau and Company. URL: http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Fperson=4084&Itemid=28

Himmelfarb, Gertrude. 1991. “Where Have All the Footnotes Gone?” New York Times Book Review, June 16, 1991, p. 1, 24.
http://msa.maryland.gov/ecp/10/214/html/0003.html

Lubac, Henri de. 1998. Medieval Exegesis: The Four Senses of Scripture. Vol. 1. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

Lubac, Henri de. 2000. Medieval Exegesis: The Four Senses of Scripture. Vol. 2. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

Lubac, Henri de. 2009. Medieval Exegesis: The Four Senses of Scripture. Vol. 3. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

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[1]

Gunnar Swanson wrote:

On Oct 30, 2013, at 8:23 AM, Ken Friedman

<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

“Terry’s reply to Per is mistaken with respect to the technology of classical typesetting and footnotes. While it is correct that footnotes requires a specific technology, he is incorrect in his description of the process. It is difficult to set footnotes in hot lead printing. A book, even with footnotes, requires planning and design. There is open space left over at the bottom of any page in which a footnote could be set.”

Terry’s description might lead one to believe that a note could be simply pounded into a locked chase which would, of course, merely leave you with squashed type. I think what he was saying was shorthand for loosening the quoins, removing a bit of the word spacing, and tapping in a superscript character, asterisk, or whatever.

If a book is designed with a reasonable bottom margin and notes are located there, short notes (such as reference footnotes) could be added by removing some furniture. That is a common design for books that feature short notes. As you indicated, it is not viable for books with lengthy notes and later 19C and early 20C books that would likely be set with a Linotype machine would require resetting the entire line. Trying to carve a hole in a Linotype slug to insert a character would not be worth the effort even if it were likely to be anything but a disaster.

I don’t know anything about the history of footnotes (oh, God. Not another thing to learn) but Terry’s explanation, although simplistic in description, is not technically implausible.

[2]

Gunnar Swanson wrote:

Footnotes (and notes in general) have different functions. Parallel or parenthetical commentary, allowing readers access to sources, and validation of information are very different in function and might call for different forms. End notes (and, to a lesser degree, footnotes) discourage an active reader from actually using them but function fairly well for access and very well for validation issues. They also have the advantage of not being distracting to reading. Side notes, especially when positioned directly next to the item in the main text, can allow easy return to reading, thus functioning like super parentheses.

The super parentheses thing can function in the extreme. I ended up with a side note on a side note in a book I edited and designed. (It was particularly appropriate since it was a chapter about an electronic version of the Talmud.)

I could imagine having multiple sorts of notes in the same document, depending on their functions (as well as multiple “voices” in the notes.)

Writing to eliminate notes for validation (Love 2013). . . make that: As Terry Love said in his provocative 2013 post to PhD-Design, writing in a manner that eliminates notes serves the “usability” of text.

I’m suspicious of simple rules for complex activities. Like Hemingway fans who tell us to always write in short, punchy sentences, reifying Terry’s good advice into “Write to avoid footnotes” would quickly show the limits of the advice but it’s advice generally worth considering. On the other hand, I wish newspapers were required to include footnotes so we’d find out what journalists’ notions of “sources” really are.

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