saturday, february 12, 2005
Footnotes where they don’t belong
I want to read more newspaper articles with footnotes. I want to see where every fact comes from and which sentences are reasoned conclusions. I want to see whether the journalist used ten sources or five. I want to know which sources they would have liked to use but couldn’t contact. I want to know when an article is mostly first-hand knowledge. I want to know how they found out about this middle-aged guy who sleeps with his favorite pillow.
This is not because I distrust journalists or because I’m suspicious of newspaper bias. I want to learn better ways to write my own articles. It’s pretty hard to decide between sources and integrate interviews and background material; some examples would be nice. This is also so I can better judge the quality of an article. Why do I take their word for it when I don’t have to?
Wikipedia’s footnote drive made me think about this. Why should I trust an encyclopedia? There are no pure primary or pure secondary sources. Reputation isn’t enough.
I’d also like a declaration of the writer’s relationship to the article’s subject. But they do this in features sometimes and it’s awkward (I don’t care why you love potatoes and cheese), so maybe it would be even more awkward in a real story.
Further reading: Footnotes as context for pop culture. Hyperlinks are the new footnotes. A lesson in attribution and sourcing.
When my sisters and I were little, we had plenty of drawing paper (“Rob paper”): boxes and boxes of dissertation drafts from my dad and his aspiring-professor friends. They had one blank side and one typewritten side. One day, I found a page that said “Footnotes:” and had a big blank space, so I traced my foot on it. My parents thought this was very funny.
comments (1)
haha.. footnotes.. i get it. Going to start doing that from now on
– kyle on 2/18/2005 23:22:55
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