How do You Write a Footnote?

MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. New York: MLA, 2003. This Chapter deals only with simple and common examples on how to write Footnote and Endnote citations.

To view examples, see Chapter 8. First Footnotes and Endnotes - Examples in MLA Style as well as Footnotes - Sample Page and Endnotes - Sample Page. Footnotes and Endnotes are used to give credit to sources of any material borrowed, summarized or paraphrased.

They are intended to refer readers to the exact pages of the works listed in the Works Cited, References, or Bibliography section. The main difference between Footnotes and Endnotes is that Footnotes are placed numerically at the foot of the very same page where direct references are made, while Endnotes are placed numerically at the end of the essay on a separate page entitled Endnotes or Notes. If you are still using a typewriter, a superscript number is typed half a space above the line after the last word of the citation, e.g. , "The Information Superhighway is giving way to a Commercial Superhighway."1 If you are using a word processor, you can access the superscript function.

To type a Footnote citation, the same superscript number is put at the beginning of the Footnote at the bottom of the same page where the citation occurs. When mentioning a work for the first time, a full and complete Footnote or Endnote entry must be made. NOTE: Only one sentence is used in a Footnote or Endnote citation, i.e.

, only one period or full stop is used at the end of any Footnote or Endnote citation. In a Bibliography, each citation consists of a minimum of three statements or sentences, hence each entry requires a minimum of three periods, e.g. , a period after the author statement, a period after the title statement, and a period after the publication statement (publication/publisher/publication date).