

The first step to creating a footnote is place a number next to the statement that needs to be sourced.

We need to create footnotes to cite our sources. "It's thrilling," says renowned biologist Elizabeth Khama, "The animals are truly making a comeback." As an example, let's say we are writing a paper about meerkat populations and we write the following sentences:Īs of 2009, the meerkat population has increased by 20% in Eastern Botswana. First, you need to place a number in the text to tell the reader what note to look for then, you need to create the note itself. There are two steps to creating a footnote. Think of the footnote as telling the reader where to go in your bibliography to find the source, and the bibliography entry as telling the reader where to go in the real world to find the source.Īn endnote is exactly like a footnote, except that endnotes appear all together at the end of the paper, while each footnote appears on the bottom of the same page as its superscripted number. Fuller information about that source is then contained in the paper's bibliography. One method for doing this is creating a footnote.Ī footnote is when you follow a quotation, a paraphrased idea, or a piece of information that otherwise needed to be cited with a superscript number (like this.) 1 Then, at the bottom of the page, you give a brief indication of where you retrieved that information. In your paper, when you quote directly from a source in their words, or when you paraphrase someone else’s idea, you need to tell the reader what that source is so the author gets credit for their words and ideas.
