Need to reference a footnote in a document, but don’t know where to place it? Wondering where footnotes are typically positioned in a document? This post will help!
How to Insert Footnote in Word
At the bottom of the page
The footnotes are placed at the bottom of a document like blog section just like in a paper document. There are benefits and drawbacks to both placement options.
The pros of placing the footnotes at the bottom of the document are that they are easily found and readers can easily navigate to the footnote. Furthermore, this placement makes it easy to reference a footnote in the text and track changes that were made to the footnote.
The cons of placing the footnotes at the bottom of the document are that it can be difficult for readers to see the footnote if it is not at the bottom of the page. Additionally, this placement can make it difficult to locate a footnote if one is looking for it in the text.
In the endnotes section
In the endnotes section, footnotes are typically positioned at the end of a paragraph. However, this is not always the case. Footnotes can be placed at any point in the text, but they should be easy to locate and easy to read.
In the bibliography
When you are citing a source in a document, you list the source in the text and place a footnote at the end of the sentence. The footnote is a block of text that provides additional information about the source.
In a document that is divided into sections, like a blog post, you usually place footnotes at the end of the paragraph in which the source is referenced. However, in a professional document, you might want to be more clever and witty. In that case, you might place the footnote after the sentence that references the source, but before the sentence that provides the information about the source.
The reference to the source appears in this sentence: “According to the Pew Research Center, in 2017, the number of Christians in the United States dropped by 1.8 million.” The footnote appears after this sentence and provides more information about the source: “The Pew Research Center is a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank based in Washington, D.C.”
In the appendices
A footnote is a short reference to a text or source. Footnotes are typically placed at the end of a document, after the reference list.
In the index
The index would typically list the footnote’s location in the document, followed by the footnote’s text.
Conclusion
Footnotes are often placed at the end of a document, but they can also be placed in the middle or at the beginning. It is important to consider where they will fit best so that they are not distracting or difficult to read.
