[bksvol-discuss] Re: Footnotes revisited...
- From: "Mayrie ReNae" <mayrierenae@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2012 15:53:30 -0700
HI Deborah,
I really like what you say. I'll take this under advisement with other
Bookshare staff.
Thanks for stating your ideas and reasons for them so clearly and concisely.
Mayrie
-----Original Message-----
From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Deborah Murray
Sent: Monday, March 19, 2012 3:43 PM
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Footnotes revisited...
Hi all,
I apologize in advance for the length of this message. I hope that anyone
who doesn't give a flying fig about footnotes or doesn't want to listen to
me rattle on about them again will just delete this!
I have voiced my concerns in the past regarding the use of both parentheses
and square brackets to denote footnote numbers. I guess I will do it
again... for what it's worth.
1. Parentheses
I have encountered many nonfiction books where a list appears in a paragraph
and the items are numbered using parentheses.
Example:
Billy has three pets he loves dearly, and are (1) Dougie the dog, (2) Chloe
the cat and (3) Felix the fish.
Now if you stick a footnote in there and surround it with parentheses it can
get confusing. And this happens a lot.
2. Square brackets
In nonfiction, the use of square brackets usually means something, such as
text that is added or changed by the author, especially when quoting
someone.
Examples:
"[T]he increased severity of tornadoes in the past year may be due, in part,
to climate change."
The witness [Suzy Q]said she saw the man [John Doe] running away from the
scene of the crime.
I know we have been told to use square brackets for inserting labels such as
[Photo caption], [Scanner's note] etc. It seems to me that using brackets
for footnotes could also be confusing, or really cluttered, depending on the
sentence.
The witness [Suzy Q][3] said she saw the man [John Doe] running away from
the scene of the crime.[4]
When we had this duscussion on-list a few months ago someone, Maybe Misha,
suggested using an asterisk to indicate a footnote and this is what I have
been doing for all the nonfiction I scan.
Example:
The witness [Suzy Q] *3 said she saw the man [John Doe] running away from
the scene of the crime. *4
I can't think of any other way to do it that is (1) not to be confused with
other types of punctuation, (2) available to speech users and (3) accessible
to braille users.
I really hope we can come to some kind of consensus on footnotes before we
start losing scanners and proofers of nonfiction.
Back to scanning...
Deborah
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