Substantive notes

Sometimes a writer wants to discuss a topic or mention something that doesn't really fit in the body of the paper: a discussion of sources, for instance, that seems too narrow to fit in the body. For such instances one may use substantive, or discursive, notes. These generally follow the same format and share the numbering of other endnotes or footnotes in the paper, though lengthy works with very extensive documentation （unlikely for undergraduate writing） may put bibliographic in endnotes and substantive notes in footnotes.

　　Here are some typical kinds of comments that might go in notes.

　　An acknowledgment or thanks, numbered "1" and attached to the title or first sentence of the essay.

　　1. Thanks to the Society of Junior Fellows for generous research support.

　　A note on method, attached to the first use of pertinent material.

　　8. Pseudonyms have been used to preserve the confidentiality of interviewees.

　　2. In 1998 Allient Computing changed its accounting procedures, making comparison with previous years impractical.

　　A note that mentions or evaluates sources.

　　1. On this difficult subject see Otto Demus, Byzantine Art and the West （Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1970）. The Larousse Encyclopaedia of Byzantine and Medieval Art, ed. Ren?Huyghe （Paris, 1958）, supplies useful documentation on other influences from the Near and Far East including Persian, Egyptian, Indian and Chinese Art of earlier periods.

　　Glynne Wickham, The Medieval Theatre, 3rd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987, 224.

　　This kind of substantive note requires special handling. If a text mentioned here has already been cited in full earlier in the work, it may receive a short reference here:

　　27. As an example of this movement, the interpretive gulf between Tillyard and Greenblatt, "Circulation," shows how radically scholarly fashion can change from one generation to the next.

　　If a work is being cited for the first time in a substantive note, the bibliographic reference is supplied in the note. It may be given in parentheses, worked into the text, or supplied at the end of the note. If it is given in parentheses, then brackets [] are used to enclose the publication facts （city, publisher, year）.