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Funnily enough Knuth was opposed to footnotes (or maybe it was his wife). Only at the behest of some colleagues in the humanities were they later added in TeX.
by carlob 11y ago
Funnily enough Knuth was opposed to footnotes (or maybe it was his wife). Only at the behest of some colleagues in the humanities were they later added in TeX.
- scott_s 11y agoFootnotes have their uses [1]. [1] Particularly when you have to say something which is almost, but not quite right, and because you're writing an academic paper, you're both worried that a reviewer will dock you for being so naive, and as an academic it pains you to say something which is not technically correct, but you have this pesky 10 page limit, so you stuff the pedantry in scriptsize font on the bottom of the page.
- iamsohungry 11y agoEh, don't ever say things that aren't correct. It's not wrong to say that something is a way of approximating or whatever; use your linguistic qualifiers. If you need more space, ask for it, or say less and write a second essay/article/whatever. Footnotes are much better used for pointing people to further reading material.