A Memo To Big Orange Re: Footnotes

Dear Big Orange,

I enjoyed our heated discussion on the phone this morning regarding footnotes. If you recall, I noted strongly that I find footnotes to be distracting and a pain in the ass to locate, due to the great length of most of your posts. You claimed that they were perfectly OK to use and you were within the rules of good writing. You suggested I check my APA Style Guide for verification. I was sure the APA Style Guide strictly forbad them, and said so, claiming to have some expertise in the use of this guide.

While I am expert in preparing references and text that align with the rules presented by the APA, my knowledge is lacking with regard to footnotes, as I refuse to use them. However, in the interest of truth, I decided to consult the APA Style Guide and put this issue to rest. While the APA has not strictly forbidden them, they do discourage their use:

Content footnotes supplement or amplify substantive information in the text; they should not include complicated irrelevant or nonessential information. Because they are distracting to readers and expensive to include in printed material, such footnotes should convey just one idea; if you find yourself creating paragraphs or displaying equations as you are writing a footnote, then the main text or an appendix probably would be a more suitable place to present your information. Another alternative to consider is to indicate in a short footnote that the material is available from the author. In most cases, an author integrates an article best by presenting important information in the text, not in a footnote. [emphasis mine]. (202)

And so it would seem that you are technically right, but I am more right. As a writer, you are a servant of the reader, to a degree. In order to convey a message with the highest chances of successful reception, it's best not to make your poor, addled, busy, and short-attention-spanned readers go looking for bits of information at the bottom of your extraordinarily long posts.

However, it's your blog, you can do what you want. Just know that I will not make the effort to check out footnotes in context; I can't be bothered with all that extra scrolling. I will read them at the end of the post, but by then, they will be a non sequitorian jumble in my head. I do have one request, however, in future: leave me the fuck out of the footnotes.

Warmest Regards,
Flannery Alden