Curriculum and Student Achievement

Author/Creation: Academic Center.    Revised: Amy Hatmaker, July  2009.
Summary:  Defines  content notes  and explains when  to use them  and  how to format  them  in APA documentation style.
Learning Objectives:   To define content notes.  To format  footnotes correctly. To  identify reasons  to use content notes.

Using  content notes  is a good way to add depth  to your  paper,  to provide  your reader  with interesting additional mat.erial, and  to impress  you:r audience with  the breadth and depth  of your knowledge.   In  this  handout, we'll define content notes, discuss  how to format  them,  and suggest  some uses for them.

What are  Content Notes?
APA style  makes  use of parenthetical references  to document certain kinds  of information (author and date).  This system works well to allow you to direct  your readers  to the sources  from which you derived  your  paper.

But  you can add another, very impressive dimension to your paper  by using  content notes  to give your  reader  additional information about  your topic  that  might  be interesting and important but  that  might. disrupt the flow of information if you include  it in the body of your  paper--in  APA style these notes  are called footnotes but. are grouped  together on a page after the main  text of your  paper.

Use footnotes in APA style to provide  material that  supplements or explains the primary content of your  paper or to provide additional bibliographical information.

Footnotes
Footnotes should  only be used when the information adds  substantially to the discussion! and they should  be concise.   Each footnote  should  convey only one idea.

In  the  text of the  paper,  insert a superscript Arabic numeral at  the point  in the  text where the material appears.                   The  numeral can be placed following any punctuation, except for a long dash.   If the note  pertains only to material enclosed  in parentheses, the numerical reference should  be placed within the  parentheses as well.

Although many  work processor  programs have a footnote/endnote feature, this  feature should not be used in an APA paper.  Instead type the numeral and  change  it to superscript using  the font  feature.

 

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            This kind  of authoritarian dominion over wives had  psychological  as well as legal implications according to Thompson
            (1973). He contends that  the pervasiveness of such  attitudes required  reciprocal  attitudes of subordination or
            deference  in the relationship. These  attitudes were embodied  in wife and  child. 1    Psychological characteristics. ..

 

The  notes  themselves are collected  on a separate page that  follows the main  body of the text and the references  page.   Items in the footnotes page should  be double-spaced, and  the notes  are presented in the  numerical order  in which  they appeared  in the text of the paper.  Each  entry should  be marked  with  a superscript numeral and  should  be indented 5-7  spaces (as you would a paragraph indention).  The  page numbering of the paper  continues, as do other  features of the APA-style  text  (e.g. 1  margins should  be one inch on each border).

 

 

Gender  Hierarchies      8

 

Footnotes

 

     1  For a different point  of view, see Ross, E.  (1983). "Survival Networks:   Women's Neighborhood Sharing in London  before

World War I,'! History Workshop ]oumal,  15,  3. Ross contends that  working class women  never learned  the habit  of deference

from  their middle  class  counterparts.

     2  The  working class neighborhood in Edwardian London  was a hostage  to its own notions of respectability. ..

 

Uses for  Supplementary Notes
The  list  below shows examples  of some of the common  uses for such  notes. Give Contrasting Information:

    2 On the other  hand,  Smythone (1987) notes  a different result  altogether in his work, contending that  the overall outcome

 of Rommel's appeal  was negative  because external  factors like the progress  of the war intervened.

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