Last week I added a small feature to this website, changing the way it
renders footnotes. That prompted me to write this quick note about how I use
footnotes, and how that influences the best way to render them.

In my early years of writing, I avoided using footnotes. My general view
was that if it was important enough to worth writing about, it should make
its way into the main text, otherwise it should be discarded. That attitude
saw me through my early books and my articles (including this site) up till
the late noughties.

But then I was writing an article about the
technology work done on Obama’s 2008 campaign. I found I wanted to add a
bunch of details about what was done, but that made the article feel like a
laundry list, burying any narrative thread. I found that moving a lot of
details to footnotes allowed the main article to be more coherent, but still
meant the details were in there for the curious reader. That became the crux
of my use of footnotes, they were for details that I wanted to include, but not derail
the main thrust of the prose.

My original approach to footnotes was to have a reference as a short link
to the body of the footnote at the end of the article.
The reader can click on the link, jump to the footnote body at the end, and
then use the back button to return to where they were reading. The new
rendering allows the reader to click the
reference, as before, but now the footnote opens up under the paragraph, so
the reader doesn’t have to scroll. I still keep the footnotes section at the
end of the article, in case the reader prints the article out.

† Like this

Another rendering I’ve seen for footnotes is the sidenote, where the
footnote text is put to one side of the page†. The trouble
with this rendering is that it’s too easy for the reader’s eye to glance
over and read the sidenote’s text. This then breaks the reader’s flow of the
main text, and thus defeats the purpose of using a footnote. I like the need
to click on the reference, because then it’s easier for the reader to refrain
from the effort to do it. They then will only click as a deliberate act – and I want
the decision to follow the footnote to be a conscious choice.

Since the reader has to click on the footnote reference to reveal the
text, I don’t think a small superscript fits the bill. So instead I’ve used a
light grey box, hopefully subtle enough to fade into the background, but
large enough to invite a reader’s finger when using a phone or tablet.