Footnotes in non-fiction

[Holly Tucker]

I'm wondering what your preferences are for footnotes in narrative non-fiction. How much? How often? What format?

How about some examples of non-fiction authors who had too many, too few, just enough? (Sounds a little like Goldilocks, doesn't it?)

HollyWonders and Marvels

[Misfit]

I don't read NF very much, but I do come across footnotes when I'm reading a Penguin Classics and they tend to over do it, and it becomes so distracting from the story I ignore them all together. When they are necessary I prefer them at the bottom of the page instead of at the back of the book -- less distracting.

[Margaret]

In narrative nonfiction, I generally prefer not to have footnotes at all, since the whole idea of narrative nonfiction is to immerse the reader in the story, similar to reading a novel. Every time I hit a footnote, assuming the numbers are large enough to register, I have to decide whether to look at the footnote or ignore it, which breaks my connection with the story. And if the numbers aren't large enough to register, it's even worse, because I'll see the footnote when I get to the bottom of the page and, if it's at all interesting, want to comb through the page to find what it's referring to. I think it's better to have an author's note at the end (either of the book or of each chapter) discussing the references used. Of course, nonfiction can't always be neatly divided into purely narrative and purely scholarly - there's a pretty large number of books that fit somewhere in the middle. It kind of depends on how most of your readers are going to read the book - whether most of them are going to be reading purely for the story, or whether they will be using it as a resource that stimulates additional research.