The OWL at Purdue University

OWL Resource

OWL at Purdue Logo

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue (http://owl.english.purdue.edu/). When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice at bottom.

From the OWL resource MLA Formatting and Style Guide

This resource was written by Jennifer Liethen Kunka and Joe Barbato; additional revision by Dave Neyhart and Erin E. Karper. Additional material by Kristen Seas..
Last full revision by Karl Stolley and Kristen Seas.
Last edited by Allen Brizee on April 9th 2008 at 10:29AM

Jump to listing of all of this resource's sections

Footnotes and Endnotes

Because long explanatory notes can be distracting to readers, most academic style guidelines (including MLA and APA) recommend limited use of footnotes/endnotes; however, certain publishers encourage or require note references in lieu of parenthetical references (see the MLA Handbook, Appendix B, and the MLA Style Manual, Appendix A, for other systems of MLA citation).

MLA discourages extensive use of explanatory or digressive notes. MLA style does, however, allow you to use endnotes or footnotes for evaluative bibliographic comments, for example:

1 See Blackmur, especially chapters three and four, for an insightful analysis of this trend.
2 On the problems related to repressed memory recovery, see Wollens pp. 120-35; for a contrasting view, see Pyle.

You can also use endnotes or footnotes for occasional explanatory notes or other brief additional helpful information that might be too digressive for the main text:

3 In a 1998 interview, she reiterated this point even more strongly: "I am an artist, not a politician!" (Weller 124).

Numbering Endnotes and Footnotes

Footnotes in MLA format are indicated by consecutively-numbered superscript arabic numbers in the main text after the punctuation of the phrase or clause the note refers to:

Some have argued that such an investigation would be fruitless.6
Scholars have argued for years that this claim has no basis,7 so we would do well to ignore it.

However, note references appear before dashes:

For years, scholars have failed to address this point8—a fact that suggests their cowardice more than their carelessness.

Do not use asterisks, daggers, or other symbols for note references. The list of endnotes and footnotes (either of which, for papers submitted for publication, should be listed on a separate page, as indicated below) should correspond to the note references in the text.

Formatting Endnotes and Footnotes

The MLA recommends that all notes be listed on a separate page titled Notes (no quotation marks or italics), which should appear before the Works Cited page. This is especially important for papers being submitted for publication. The notes themselves are listed by consecutive superscript arabic numbers and appear double-spaced in regular paragraph format (a new paragraph for each note) on a separate page under the word Notes (centered, in plain text without quotation marks).

In the case that you need to format footnotes on the same page as the main text, footnotes should begin four lines (two double-spaced lines) below the main text. Single-space notes formatted as footnotes on the page, but double-space between individual notes.

Copyright ©1995-2008 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use. Please report any technical problems you encounter.