One of the little details authors fret about is footnotes vs. endnotes. It’s a style choice: should you keep a slot at the bottom of every page for notes, or collect them all at the end of the book (or chapter)? A quick survey of 10 books from the library shows:

Endnotes: 4
Footnotes: 4
No notes(!): 2

Sure, its fair to say who cares – what is in the notes matters more than where they are, but still. Don’t you have an opinion? Many folks do and get quite passionate about it. Here are the main arguments:

Footnotes. The pros: You can quickly check the note without leaving the page, and the author can stuff funny things in there. The cons: it’s distracting if there are lots of notes and can be visually ugly.

End-notes: The pros: Saves research questions to the end and keeps pages clean. Cons: the footnotes are rarely read and if they are, it’s hard to know what the author is referring to. You also have to jump back and guess where the note came from.

I ask because my book is at that stage. If you have any bright ideas, or entertaining rants, I’d love to hear them now.

Update: Decision was made and you can read about it here.