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Functions of a Footnote. 12 Basic IQ Skills. IQ: FRAU. Find Retrieve Analyze Use. This skill helps you to USE information effectively and ethically. . Standing on the Shoulders of Giants. Austin Seminary expects that students acknowledge sources appropriately in academic work.
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Functions of a Footnote 12 Basic IQ Skills
IQ: FRAU • Find • Retrieve • Analyze • Use This skill helps you to USE information effectively and ethically.
Standing on the Shoulders of Giants Austin Seminary expects that students acknowledge sources appropriately in academic work. • Turabian, 7th ed. • Notes-Bibliography style (Sections 16-17)
Why Care About Footnotes? • Using footnotes well makes your work crisper and more interesting. • Professors like crisp and interesting papers. • Therefore: Use footnotes well!
Function 1: Credit • To give CREDIT to others whose ideas you have benefited from • Not to do it is PLAGIARISM: a bad thing • See Example 1 – on the PDF handout.
Function 1: Credit When in doubt, use a footnote to credit sources of ideas.
Function 2: Appear Credible • “Readers do not trust a source they do not know and cannot find.” Turabian, Manual,134. • See Example 2 on the PDF handout.
Function 2: Appear Credible • Using a footnote from a prestigious source makes you appear to know what you are talking about (so, cite the PCUSA website, not a popular blog).
Function 3: Connect to Other Research • Researchers “cite work that they extend, support, contradict, or correct.” Turabian, Manual, 134. • Footnotes of this type help readers see the bigger picture. • See Example 3 on the PDF handout.
Function4: Readers Build on Your Work • As a researcher, you use other’s footnotes to find sources. • Your readers have their own purposes, including harvesting your sources to support their own research. • Thus, footnotes and bibliographies assist all scholars in their work: scholarship becomes cumulative.
Function 5: Explanatory • A footnote may provide a short definition or an explanation which would intrude into your argument or disrupt the flow of your masterful prose. • See Example 4 on PDF handout– definition • See Example 5 on PDF handout– explanation
Use Footnotes to: • Give credit to others • Appear trustworthy • Connect your work to previous research • Enable others to build on your work • Briefly explain points without detracting from your main arc of thought
Sources Kate L. Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, 7th ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006). This presentation was originally written and presented by Timothy D. Lincoln, Director of Stitt Library.
Questions? libraryiq@austinseminary.edu