Dear god I really hate when publishers do their references/notes like this. Sitting here at the end, unlinked to the actual text. There's a special place in hell for editors that do this in the digital age.

Rules of thumb and useful heuristics like this should appear in the main bod of the text instead of being hidden in the footnotes.

In an ever-increasing sphere of digital print, why can't publishers provide readers a digitally programmed selection of footnote references in texts?

This digital version of Annie Murphy Paul's book has endnotes with links from the endnotes back to the original pages, but the opposite links from the reading don't go to the endnotes in an obvious way.

I'd love to be able to turn on/off a variety of footnote options so that I can see them on the pages they appear, as pop up modals, or browse through them in the end notes after-the-fact as I choose. This would allow me to have more choice and selection from a text based on what I want to get out of it rather than relying on a publisher to make that choice for me.

Often in publishing a text written for the broad public will "hide" the footnotes at the end of the text in unintuitive ways where as more scholarly presses will place them closer to their appearance within the text. Given the digital nature of texts, it should be possible to allow the reader to choose where these items appear to suit their reading styles.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1390636720501231621.html

https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/medieval-world/medieval-book/using-medieval-book/a/the-medieval-origins-of-the-modern-footnote

In a version similar to a footnote, a line and a dot were first used much as we use the carot symbol (^) today for editing to indicate the insertion of a missing line.

Evolution of footnotes

I've been wondering about what I perceive as a dreadful editorial choice in how these footnote links have been done. Given the book however, I'm also now wondering if this is consciously done by design to provide a blindfold of sorts to prevent bias either for or against these sources.

Either way I, still wish they were more traditionally done and/or presented. I at least wish I had the added context about them on their respective pages.

I need to pause here for a moment to say how deeply appreciative I am for articles that use footnotes instead of endnotes. I'll scroll to the bottom of the page, but I'll be damned if I'm going to flounder around jumping from front to end and back again.

Ok if someone would have explained it to me like this in high school I would have had a reason to care about doing them instead of hating them.

Endnotes, huh? 😒

I need to pause here for a moment to say how deeply appreciative I am for articles that use footnotes instead of endnotes. I'll scroll to the bottom of the page, but I'll be damned if I'm going to flounder around jumping from front to end and back again.

But these footnotes are inscribed forms of thought. Plato is himself nothing but a series of written inscription - of which these footnotes are a part.

The footnotes are strange. There seems to be something symbolic here in placing men in the footnotes when they have traditionally been the primary text. But it also shows Cixous interest in multiple viewpoints.

I've thought of essays looking professional, but I've not thought how footnotes add to that look.

Good point.

Zweiter Versuch in footnotes