> Don’t slow the reader down. Avoid footnotes because they break the flow of thoughts and send your eyes darting back and forth while your hands are turning pag

> Don’t slow the reader down. Avoid footnotes because they break the flow of thoughts and send your eyes darting back and forth while your hands are turning pages or clicking on links. This sounds reasonable for technical writing, though it's interesting to read McCarthy's recommendation after considering David Foster Wallace's work, where there is a very frequent usage of footnotes. In his non-fictional essays essays—often in the role of a reporter like in his well-known "Consider the Lobster" for Gourmet magazine [0]—Wallace uses extensive footnotes. This isn't technical writing, though the quality of Wallace's convinced me that footnotes can have a useful place in fictional writing. > And don’t worry too much about readers who want to find a way to argue about every tangential point and list all possible qualifications for every statement. Just enjoy writing. From Hacker News discussions (and also speaking to a colleague who competed at a high level on a debate team in high school), I learned the opposite lesson. If there is a weakness in an argument, it's likely it will be pointed out. I've found it important to consider weaknesses in logic and try to anticipate counter-arguments whenever possible, when writing for readers from more technical problems. [0] [PDF] http://www.columbia.edu/~col8/lobsterarticle.pdf http://www.columbia.edu/~col8/lobsterarticle.pdf