Handbook of style in use at the Riverside Press/Footnotes

by The Riverside Press

 

FOOTNOTES

 

Footnotes should be set in 9 point for 12 point text; in 8 point for 11 and 10 point text; and in 6 point for 9 and 8 point text.

Reference signs are no longer used, but the general practice is to use superior figures in both text and notes. In special cases the asterisk, dagger, etc., or superior letters, may be used. The copy is to be followed in such cases.

Separate the reference figure in a note from the first letter by a 3-em space. In the text, if the figure follows a period or comma, no space is required; otherwise, separate it from the character preceding by a 5-em space.

If notes are short, and the measure permits, two or more may be put in one line, with at least 2 ems between. If this is not practicable, where two or more occur on the same page, none of which is a full line in length, centre the longest line, and align the shorter ones with it. If there be on the page but one note of a single short line, this should be centred.

If in the text there are extracts in the same or nearly the same size of type as the notes, coming at the bottom of the page, a full-width single rule should be used to separate the notes from the extracts.

In wide measure, the notes may be set to advantage in half-measure, with blank space of an eight-point em between the columns. This method of composition frequently saves space, and gives a more compact page, when the notes are short. When this method is used, the half-measure should not be used for a single note unless it makes at least two full lines.

Where references to the same work follow each other closely and without other references intervening, use ibid. instead of repeating the title. The full reference should, however, be repeated where it appears as the first note on a succeeding page; or, if the title is long, repeat the author’s name, with loc. cit. or op. cil.

Footnotes to tabular work should be set in 6 point, and should invariably be placed at the foot of the table, and not at the foot of the page, if text type intervenes.

The following are examples of the most usual method of citing authorities in footnotes:—

¹ U. S. Grant, Personal Memoirs, vol. ii, p. 204.

² Southern Magazine, vol. xv, p. 300.

³ Herbert Spencer, Social Statics, chap. iii, p. 62.

⁴ Ibid., chap. iv.

⁵ Grant, loc. cit.

⁶ Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Milman ed.), vol. i, chap. xxiv.

⁷ Morris Schaff, “The Battle of the Wilderness,” Atlantic Monthly, June, 1909.