Proper Notation

The most common notations used in nonfiction writing are footnotes and endnotes. Footnotes appear at the bottom of each page as they occur in the content of the page, and they are numbered sequentially throughout the work. Endnotes appear at the end of the article, chapter, or book and are also numbered sequentially throughout the work.

Both footnotes and endnotes can contain any type of special notation that the author wishes to convey to the reader as it relates to the contents of the sentence it notates. The most common and useful notation is a book or an article reference.

When making a simple notation in your footnotes or endnotes, it can look like this:

[1] Contrary to popular and widespread ignorance, a generation is defined by a twenty-year period rather than by who was born in pre-war or post-war periods. American marketers who want to shorten a generation actually serve to...

When creating a footnote or endnote that contains a book reference, it will look like this:

[1] The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed., The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2003: 58-59.

This is the proper sequence of information in a footnote which references a book: author's last name, author's first name, book title in italics, edition (if there is one), name of the publisher, unless the publisher is also the author, as it is above, city of publisher, year of copyright, colon, space, and page numbers quoted.

When marking a footnote that is from the same source as the previous footnote, it is not necessary to redo the entire reference. Instead, the footnote will look like this:

[1] Ibid.

The word "Ibid" denotes that the reference information is the same as the previous reference entry.



In nonfiction writing, a writer may be required to occasionally provide a bibliography. This is true especially if you are writing a book of any length. The publisher will want you to provide a bibliography of all of the books and sources that you have quoted. In general, you do not want to quote a book too heavily in nonfiction writing because it loses its appeal as fresh material and it sends up a flag to the editor. The editor may suspect that you have plagiarized since new writers tend to try to hide just how much they borrowed from their material sources.

The correct form for a bibliography entry:

Thinking Like Your Editor, by Susan Rabiner and Alfred Fortunato © 2002; W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, NY. ISBN 0-393-03892-0

A bibliography should be prepared on a separate page or pages from the rest of your manuscript. Your editor may not want you to include the book's ISBN number in the bibliography. I have included the ISBN numbers in the references for this course because Universal Class wants you to have resource information to take from the class and study at your own pace and for future use. When you take a writing assignment, make sure you know what your editor or client is looking for in this area and adjust accordingly.

WORDS TO KNOW

1. Footnote. A notation of importance or a book reference made at the bottom of the page on which it occurs, numbered and referenced in sequence.


2. Endnote. A notation of importance or a book reference made at the end of the chapter or book in which it occurs, numbered and referenced in sequence.


3. Bibliography. A separate page(s) listing all of the books, authors, and attending pages from each book from which you have quoted in the content of your manuscript or article.