Footnotes versus bibliography

[daveleau]

Hi CF writers!

Merry Christmas to all of you!

I am writing a paper for one of my classes and seem a bit confused about footnotes in regards to material I am very unfamiliar with. I am writing a paper on the Intertestamental Period (end of OT to beginning of NT) and am reading a lot of stuff I've never been exposed to. Because of my unfamiliarity, I have been posting a ton of footnotes that give sources for the information. Is it more appropriate, when using major sources (Josephus, Maccabees, respected theological writer), to put fewer footnotes and list the sources in the bibliography, or is it fine to have a long list of footnotes despite not using many/any direct quotations?

Thank you for your help and God bless you!
Dave

 

[oncewaslost]

well, footnotes can be used for citing sources or explaining something further that wouldn't fit in the main text or you don't want to distract the reader. usually, you use the full source citation the first time and then you abbreviate the citation after that. the length of footnotes doesn't really matter (at least not that i've seen) but if it's more than half a page on each page, i would suggest endnotes or a bibliography.

if the more information you are talking about is just for further reading, i.e. you aren't citing/paraphrasing/using ideas from the text, then i would say a bibliography. i've had to use both before. hope that helps and i haven't confused you.