Functions of a Footnote 12 Basic IQ Skills

IQ: FRAU Find Retrieve Analyze Use This skill helps you to USE information effectively and ethically.

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants Austin Seminary expects that students acknowledge sources appropriately in academic work. – Turabian, 7 th ed. – Notes-Bibliography style (Sections 16-17)

Why Care About Footnotes? Using footnotes well makes your work crisper and more interesting. Professors like crisp and interesting papers. Therefore: Use footnotes well!

Function 1: Credit To give CREDIT to others whose ideas you have benefited from Not to do it is PLAGIARISM: a bad thing See Example 1 – on the PDF handout.

Function 1: Credit When in doubt, use a footnote to credit sources of ideas.

Function 2: Appear Credible “Readers do not trust a source they do not know and cannot find.” Turabian, Manual,134. See Example 2 on the PDF handout.

Function 2: Appear Credible Using a footnote from a prestigious source makes you appear to know what you are talking about (so, cite the PCUSA website, not a popular blog).

Function 3: Connect to Other Research Researchers “cite work that they extend, support, contradict, or correct.” Turabian, Manual, 134. Footnotes of this type help readers see the bigger picture. See Example 3 on the PDF handout.

Function4: Readers Build on Your Work As a researcher, you use other’s footnotes to find sources. Your readers have their own purposes, including harvesting your sources to support their own research. Thus, footnotes and bibliographies assist all scholars in their work: scholarship becomes cumulative.

Function 5: Explanatory A footnote may provide a short definition or an explanation which would intrude into your argument or disrupt the flow of your masterful prose. See Example 4 on PDF handout– definition See Example 5 on PDF handout– explanation

Use Footnotes to: Give credit to others Appear trustworthy Connect your work to previous research Enable others to build on your work Briefly explain points without detracting from your main arc of thought

Sources Kate L. Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, 7 th ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006). This presentation was originally written and presented by Timothy D. Lincoln, Director of Stitt Library.

Questions?