Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!xanth!ames!zodiac!saturn!xanthian From: xanthian@saturn.ADS.COM (Metafont Consultant Account) Newsgroups: comp.text Subject: Re: Marginal Notes vs. Footnotes Message-ID: <10236@zodiac.ADS.COM> Date: 30 Dec 89 07:38:49 GMT References: Sender: news@zodiac.ADS.COM Organization: Advanced Decision Systems, Mt. View, CA (415) 960-7300 Lines: 29 In article gaynor@topaz.rutgers.edu writes: >Under which circumstances is one more appropriate than the other? >I usually decide this by feel, most often in favor of footnotes. >Would you textperts illumine me on the ways of extratextual notes? The uses I have seen of this have been in annotated editions of base texts where the annotations exceed in bulk the original text. Reading the annotations beside the text as a pair of two-up columns is _much_ more pleasant than reading them as footnotes, in part because the eyes do better moving side to side than up and down when reading, in part because the annotations are partially self indexed when they lay alongside the line(s) being annotated, saving wear and tear on the user's number/symbol matching capacity. An excellent example of annotations done parallel to the text rather than as footnotes is Martin Gardner's _The Annotated Alice_. Again, my opinion, not the account furnishers'. xanthian@well.sf.ca.us Kent, the (bionic) man from xanth, now available as a build-a-xanthian kit at better toy stores near you. Warning - some parts are fragile. /^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^\ < Your artwork converted to a METAFONT symbol program for TeX and LaTeX use! > < Send a salad plate sized blowup, a SASE, and a cover letter to me at TCC, > < P.O. Box 390755, Mountain View, CA 94039-0755 for a no risk, fixed price > < quote. Company logos a specialty. (Hey, it's a living, however modest.) > \vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv/