A Betrayal Of Ignorance And Inexperience
Louis Menand: “Throw in sleep deprivation and a mild case of caffeine jitters, and the combination is guaranteed to produce flawed page after flawed page. In the world of End Matter, there is no such thing as a flyspeck. Every error is an error of substance, a betrayal of ignorance and inexperience, the academic equivalent of the double dribble. That the decorums of citation are the arbitrary residue of ancient pedantries whose raisons d'être are long past reconstructing does not reduce the penalties for nonconformity.”
The article is part justly deserved polemic against Microsoft Word, part review of style guides, and, as evinced in the above quote, part expression of frustration that academics, both budding and professional, face when writing the footnotes and bibliography for their papers.
An interesting read—although I only got halfway realizing that my studies needed more attention—is The Footnote: A Curious History by Anthony Grafton. There is also, evidently, a shorter, newer text on the history of footnotes available.
