Of course, these are just guidelines sometimes where to use a footnote or endnote depends upon corporate style guides, publisher preferences or simply how you want things to look. However, for short explanations where the text note is relevant to add context to the main body of the content, these descriptions should be added as a footnote. Similarly with references, where the reader is more likely to need this information after they have read your paper, these should be added as endnotes. For example, if you have a very long piece of text to enter, it might be more appropriate to add this as an endnote as long footnotes will by default flow onto the bottom of the following page which may confuse a reader. When deciding whether to use a footnote or endnote, this can depend upon the nature of the text. in the footer) and endnotes are located at the end of a document, or sometimes at the end of a chapter or section.įootnotes and endnotes fundamentally look the same, and contain the same or similar information, one difference they have is the numbering system used which allows the reader to determine where they should look for the additional information (either in the footer of the page, or at the end of the document). The primary difference between footnotes and endnotes is simply the placement with a document footnotes are found at the bottom of a page (i.e. The difference between a footnote and an endnote The purpose of these text notes is to to cite a reference or give greater context to, or expand upon, a point in the main body of the document, where it would be difficult to include this is the main body.

You will have seen them in reference books, press releases and research papers (and many other documents besides that).

Footnotes and Endnotes in Microsoft Word allow you to reference additional information or credit external sources in a document.

How to use footnotes in word