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Interesting linking style used in this article, especially considering the topic. Isn't it a bit of a step backwards to start using footnotes on the web? I'd

Interesting linking style used in this article, especially considering the topic. Isn't it a bit of a step backwards to start using footnotes on the web? I'd rather see the links to the past papers worked into a sentence, with links for each per topic for instance. That's what is so great about the web, I can hop instantly off to check on something that catches my eye. I suppose it could be argued that using footnotes will keep the users from getting distracted, but I consider cleverly working in links to be one of the joys of both reading and writing on the web.

nostrademons 16y ago
You're supposed to internalize the process of remembering footnotes and cross-referencing them with the links, instead of relying on external cues like hyperlinks. ;-)
chalst 16y ago
My preference: using author-date referencing with a reflist rather than footnotes makes it easier to see what the aside is about, and allows you to include such relevant information as the title of the paper and where it was published together at the end of the page in the reflist. Bundling all this information inline is distracting if it happens more than once or twice. There's no reason why the hyperlinks shouldn't be to the papers themselves if you follow this system. Putting digressions, rather than just sources, in footnotes is what annoys me. It's just lazy: "I wanted to say this as well, so I'll slap it into a footnote instead or figuring out how to say it in a readable way. So footnote 1, Incidentally it is amusing to note, blah, blah...", leaving the reader with the choice of following the footnote and spoiling the flow of the main post, or not following it and missing whatever the writer had thought was worth writing down. They make distractions, they don't avoid them.
- jedbrown 16y ago
  Sometimes with technical material, I read the same paragraph multiple times. If the footnote is really an "aside", I can just read it once and not have it clutter the paragraph when I'm rereading.
  - chalst 16y ago
    If there's some policy at work that allows you to know what kind of information might be in a footnote, fine, you can indeed eliminate clutter in this way. Only putting sources in footnotes works, for instance. But authors who tend to put asides in footnotes sometimes put such crucial material as definitions in footnotes. Don't you ever find yourself switching from main text to footnote when rereading technical material?

nostrademons 16y ago

You're supposed to internalize the process of remembering footnotes and cross-referencing them with the links, instead of relying on external cues like hyperlinks. ;-)

chalst 16y ago

My preference: using author-date referencing with a reflist rather than footnotes makes it easier to see what the aside is about, and allows you to include such relevant information as the title of the paper and where it was published together at the end of the page in the reflist. Bundling all this information inline is distracting if it happens more than once or twice. There's no reason why the hyperlinks shouldn't be to the papers themselves if you follow this system. Putting digressions, rather than just sources, in footnotes is what annoys me. It's just lazy: "I wanted to say this as well, so I'll slap it into a footnote instead or figuring out how to say it in a readable way. So footnote 1, Incidentally it is amusing to note, blah, blah...", leaving the reader with the choice of following the footnote and spoiling the flow of the main post, or not following it and missing whatever the writer had thought was worth writing down. They make distractions, they don't avoid them.

jedbrown 16y ago
Sometimes with technical material, I read the same paragraph multiple times. If the footnote is really an "aside", I can just read it once and not have it clutter the paragraph when I'm rereading.
- chalst 16y ago
  If there's some policy at work that allows you to know what kind of information might be in a footnote, fine, you can indeed eliminate clutter in this way. Only putting sources in footnotes works, for instance. But authors who tend to put asides in footnotes sometimes put such crucial material as definitions in footnotes. Don't you ever find yourself switching from main text to footnote when rereading technical material?