Footnotes and marginalia

Footnotes are notes that are added at the end of a page, usually annotated by a small number. Since the most recent version of this website, footnotes are displayed at the side of the page, in a similar manner to marginalia ('sidenotes'). I made this decision because footnotes come from a print history. The essential difference is that a web page can have a virtually infinite length, so the reader often needs to scroll the footnote into the viewpoint which disrupts the reading experience heavily. At this point, the only difference between footnotes and sidenotes is the way they are annotated.⊕In a mobile format, there don't exist any margins. Instead, footnote and marginalia annotations become clickable anchor links which expand and collapse the note within the text.

One should aim to find a balance between strictly appropriate use of perhaps useful, sometimes more entertaining foot- and sidenotes (this is a blog afterall), and strictly bibliographic or content notes, such as specified by the Purdue Writing Lab in accordance with the MLA citation format.MLA Endnotes and Footnotes, Purdue Writing Lab. Accessed June 24, 2022. If I followed this approach at all times, the margin note explaining sidenote format on mobile devices above would be inappropriate, and should perhaps belong to the main text body.⊕In this particular case, I chose to go for a sidenote since it itself will demonstrate the functionality if read on a mobile device. This balance is something I will figure out during the course of writing the next few articles.

If interested, you can see the markdown syntax on my Markdown cheatsheet.