Use of footnotes/glossaries/appendices? (1 Viewer)

[Lhyviathan]

I was just wondering if:

1) It's a good idea to include footnotes, glossaries or appendices in a critical response.
2) They count towards the word limit?

Any clarification would be great.

 

[toryn]

They don't count towards the word limit, and it's good to include that sort of stuff, to show your research, etc., just don't overdo it. While the occasional reference can show the sophistication of a work, too much can stuff it, disrupt the flow. No one wants to read a page of footnotes.

If only I would take my own advice.

 

[Lhyviathan]

Thanks for that.

What about subheadings? Is it alright to use subheadings in a critical response?

 

[MissSavage29]

you should footnote the name of all sources that are in your essay - and make sure that you do this properly - otherwise its just a waste of time.

proper footnoting of a book is as follows

Author Last name, Authors first name; Book title; Publisher; Year; Page number

eg. Moi, Toril; Sensual, Textual Politics Feminist Literary Theory; New York, Routledge, 1984, pg 57-58

When you use the smae book twice - if the quote is straight after another one from teh same book you so

Last name, First name; Book Title; ibid
ibid - means directly above

if it is not dirrectly above but already mentioned you use
Last name, First Name; Book title (can be in short); opp cite
(opp cite means its been used before)

You can also use footnotes to claify a point - ie. a deffinition or some facutal research that doesn't go in the essay but is necessary...

but whatever you do dont use the footnotes to add onto the word limit - the markers are not stupid and will know if you are attempting to put an extra 2000 words in your footnotes - they are used to provid extra information on an absolutly necessary basis - so you asked if the count towards the word limit

if you are using them properly they dont - becuase you need to reference books etc and sometiems you absoulty must clarify the definiton of a word or somethign - thus they are needed but if you are putting in heaps of stuff just to add extra info that wont fit into your essay you will be penalised.
like toryn said they dont want to be reading half a page of footnotes

i probably would not worry abotu a glossary or appendix- appendix info should be in your jounals anyway

 

[Lhyviathan]

Yeah, I've mostly used it to cite books/journals so far, in exactly that form...

Is it also alright to use it for definitions?

For example...


"... composed of four kanji1 characters..."


1 “A Japanese system of writing based on borrowed or modified Chinese characters.” – www.dictionary.com


And also, do they pound you into the dirt if you don't cite the page number of your source every time? Because I just used books, but read their transcripts on the internet... so it's a little hard to know which pages they correspond to in the actual book.

 

[MissSavage29]

yeah you can use footnotes for definitions - the only thing is you should put your number at the end of your sentence - no idea why but apparently that is how it is

you should have the page numbers for the majority of your texts. if you are missing a couple they are not goign to mark you down severly but see if you can find them.

 

[toryn]

Lhyviathan: Looking around at other English Extension 2 MW's, I've seen definitions used, for specialised words - like kanji, especially foreign words/names. If it's a word that you think needs a definition, I think a footnote should be alright.

And, no, I'd say that page numbers are not necessary. Record everything as precisely as you can in your journal, for later use, but editions differ, and works are updated; the name and title (and publisher and/or date, if you like) should be adequate.

Also, I've seen subheadings used. Only use them if they don't detract from the work; sometimes subheadings can be useful, as long as there aren't too many. In a critical response (I'm also doing crit) I'd personally limit myself to about 4 or 5 subheadings, max. It gets too broken up, otherwise.

 

[Lhyviathan]

Hahahaha!! Well, damn me...

This is my third footnote:

3 Kanji: Japanese writing system based on borrowed and modified Chinese characters.

 

[toryn]

Sorry, Lhyviathan, I hadn't intended to contradict you, my email just sent me to the thread as it was before you posted.

I suppose you can include page numbers if you like (is there anything on how specific you need to be when quoting sources in the syllabus or something?), it all depends on personal opinion. Or what your English teachers ask for. I'm probably not going to bother, mostly for aesthetic reasons: I reckon page numbers would make the footnotes look too cluttered. But someone else might think it looks more professional. To each his/her own.

And your footnote looks lovely. Nice and succinct.

 

[glycerine]

Yeah, like when I did mine of Buffy and quoted stuff from interviews I would use it to add information they may not know like "Sarah Michelle Gellar - actress playing the role of Buffy Summers", or occasionally when explaining context. Generally I tried to limit these to about 2 lines.