gaynor@busboys.rutgers.edu (Silver) (12/12/89)
In article <Dec.9.23.45.49.1989.8147@paul.rutgers.edu> I wrote: > Under which circumstances is one more appropriate than the other? > I usually decide this by feel, most often in favor of footnotes. > Would you textperts illumine me on the ways of extratextual notes? _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ From: raymond@bosco.berkeley.edu (Raymond Chen) Personally, I think footnotes are more scholarly whereas marginal notes are more like ... well .. scribbling in the margin. Things I put in margins are like \marginpar{This is a useful trick for getting infinitely many $\epsilon$'s out of just one.} or \marginpar{Equality need not hold. Consider the Cantor function.} or even a \marginpar{I sense hand-waving.} _______________________________________________________________________________ From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz X5180) I've only seen marginal notes in old-style books (to 1700's) and in some math text books. I think that marginalia are probably to be avoided except in replication of archaic style and as pointers in texts. _______________________________________________________________________________ From: dhosek@jarthur.Claremont.EDU (D.A. Hosek) Marginal notes are almost never used in most texts. Where they do occur, they serve on of three purposes: most commonly, they are annotations for people who are unlikely to be familiar with the work in question. For example, I have a kids' edition of Around the Word in Eighty Days which defines words that kids might not know in the margins. Another common use is for cross-references. The New Jerusalem Bible, for example, indicates parallel and related passages through marginal notes. My LaTeX class handouts use them as pointers to the LaTeX book for more information (although I'm rapidly approaching the point where I will be independent from that work with my notes). The third context I've seen them used is in reproducing the annotations of past commentators. In particular, biblical commentaries often use them (along with footnotes, headnotes, and interlinear notes, with each margin plus the three above representing a separate commentator! one work I encountered had no less than six running commentaries along with the text). Also, I have an edition of Boswell's life of Johnson which reproduces the marginalia of Hester Thrale using marginal notes. Rather than use something like \marginpar directly, however, I recommend that you use another macro which calls \marginpar. This will make changing marginal notes into footnotes or endnotes somewhat easier. _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ Thank you one and all. Regards, [Ag]