Regarding the issue of documentation:

No need for footnotes, which ordinarily would come at the end of a heading,
and would comment or amplify the sentence/word in the text tagged with the
footnote mark (as a superscript, say).  Authors could accumulate all those
comment/amplifications as endnotes at the end of the article and before the
bibliography (reference list).  That way authors can attend to the flow of
the text and still fledge out their content as needed.  [The endnotes might
have in-text citations to items in the bibliography.]

Why worry about the size of the bibliography, if appropriate to the goals of
scholarship (citing sources, allowing readers to explore aspects of topics
further, etc.).  Putting the bibliography at the end of the article doesn't
hinder the reader.  The in-text markers to the bibliographic entry needn't
hinder reader flow if made simple, like numerals in parentheses [e.g.,
(14,72)] or author-year (e.g., Sanger, 2006b).  Use a smaller font-size for
the bibliography.  Editors check viability of electronic sources, and
indicate date last accessed.

Anthony.Sebastian

_________________________
Anthony Sebastian, MD
[EMAIL PROTECTED] [preferred email address] 
  

-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of W. Guy Finley
Sent: Monday, November 06, 2006 3:24 PM
To: Derek Lyons
Cc: [email protected]; Ori Redler
Subject: Re: [Citizendium-l] Several issues vis-a-vis WP and design


On Nov 6, 2006, at 4:40 PM, Derek Lyons wrote:

> On 11/6/06, Ori Redler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> In WP, and also here, those are very much in vogue, probably as part
> of the effort to show >that WP (or CZ) is a credible source of
> information. The problem is that footnotes tend to >hinder
> readability. I think we need to find a way to make notes less
> prominent (although I'm >not sure exactly how).
>
> Footnoting and bibliographies can also be taken *too* far.  I forget
> which one, but I recently came across an article on a semi-popular
> topic that had *57 footnotes* for a three screen long article.  (Then
> the bibliography covered another two screens - all of the cites other
> websites, and over half of them 404ed.)
>
> D.
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And let's not forget articles like GWB with abut 10 sub-artiicles.   
For GWB to have that much ink compared to say the Eisenhower article  
is just unthinkable.

--Guy
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