Priceless Writing Tips3 Differences Between End Notes and Foot Notes in a Nutshell

End Notes Even if it’s your first time with end notes or foot notes, you already know what’s meant. In your life, you probably already saw something like this when you read some of your favorite books or an article on Wikipedia. Do you remember your eyes were searching for the clarification of some unclear words or even translation of foreign terms? Those clarifications at the bottom of the page were foot notes, whereas the clarifications at the end of the publication are end notes.

In academic writing, notes are used for another, one and only, purpose – giving credit to the sources of materials. And here’s how you will know where and how to place your notes:

3 Major Differences Between End Notes and Foot Notes

  1. Location. This one could be a remark of the Captain Obvious, but it does matter.
  2. Format. Foot notes always go with a bibliography page. A foot note contains only a brief info on the resource used. A bibliography page contains more detailed info of all sources, ordered alphabetically.

    End notes contain all the necessary information on a source, ordered exactly like it’s ordered in the text.

  3. Constituents. In text, foot notes use upper case Arabic numerals: 1, whereas end notes use Arabic numerals in brackets (1).

Foot notes and end notes can be used in MLA, APA, Chicago and Turabian citation styles. Depending upon their specific requirements, notes can take different forms.

E.g. A footnote in Chicago style:

1 Garrett P. Serviss, “A Trip of Terror,” 17-32.

E.g. A corresponding bibliography entry:

Serviss, Garrett “A Trip of Terror,” in A Columbus of Space (New York: Appleton, 1911), 17-32.

E.g. An endnote in Chicago style (it starts on a new page)

1. Serviss, Garrett “A Trip of Terror,” in A Columbus of Space (New York: Appleton, 1911), 17-32.

Hopefully, it made the differences between end notes and foot notes clearer.

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