Footnotes

[dr_whom]

I just sent in my comments and corrections on the page proofs for my paper that's going to be coming out in the first issue of the Journal of Linguistic Geography. I wanted to share one of my comments with you.

Pages 25–26, lines 1761–1864:
This is the first issue of a brand-new journal. There are no stylistic precedents set by previous volumes to which you must slavishly conform; Cambridge University Press has, today, a free hand in determining the style of the Journal of Linguistic Geography for all time. Therefore I beg you, I implore you, on my knees if necessary, to do the humane thing, do the honest thing, do the sensible thing, and use footnotes instead of endnotes. If you use endnotes, future generations of scholars will weep and swear and gnash their teeth over this unjustifiable choice; but you have a chance to avert this unnecessary anguish right now and let them sleep easy in their beds. Show some compassion. Do the right thing. Use footnotes.

I don't think it'll get the job done, but I wanted to get that off my chest anyway.

Comments

[midnight-sidhe.livejournal.com]

*thunderous applause* I commend you for this heroic stance in the name of justice and happiness.

[q10.livejournal.com]

you may not succeed, but you will always know that you fought the good fight.

why do endnotes persist as a phenomenon, anyway? i understand that they made typesetting easier back in the day, and i respect that many academic publications are typeset on the cheap, but it is beyond me why they would persist in the modern age of computerized typesetting. only for some reason people keep using them, which implies that somebody sees in them some merit that i do not, and i'm sort of wondering what it is.

[q10.livejournal.com]

‘I beg you, I implore you, on my knees if necessary, to do the humane thing, do the honest thing, do the sensible thing, and use footnotes instead of endnotes.’

may i reuse this line, with attribution, at such time(s) as it becomes applicable?

[dr_whom]

Please do.

[prisminawindow.livejournal.com]

I salute you, sir, for you are fighting the good fight.

[theevilgenius.livejournal.com]

Truuuuuth.

[rford.livejournal.com]

There are journals that don't have footnotes? Man, between this, not having to get a PhD, and not having to go through peer review, law really is the secret loophole of academia.

[q10.livejournal.com]

to be fair, law journals have many characteristics that make academics in other fields wince.

[rford.livejournal.com]

Oh absolutely, they have many downsides, both scholarly and in terms of usability.