A Note on Notes
Students are often uncertain how elaborate their footnotes should be.
The following rules are a reasonable guide.
- Common information that is obtainable in any standard work does
not need a footnote, but unusual or curious facts do.
- The source of all quotations must be given.
- The source of all important or controversial opinions must be given.
- If you wish to quote primary source material which you have found
in a secondary source, you should state where it came from originally,
and where you found it.
Footnotes may be used to qualify, amplify or make incidental comments
on discussion in the text of the essay, but this should be done very
sparingly. Footnotes should not contain arguments which properly belong
in the text.
