Footnotes for white papers 101
by Gordon Graham, That White Paper Guy
Footnotes are an essential ingredient of a persuasive white paper.
It's not difficult to write down your views.
It's much harder to find compelling evidence to back up those views.
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Footnotes help your white paper convey much more authority than any simple blog post or opinion piece. Footnotes help build your argument, define your terms and prove that you've done your homework. |
But many writers haven't thought about footnotes since college.
To help you use footnotes effectively, here are answers to some frequently asked questions about them.
Q: How can I tell when I need a footnote?
Whenever you define a term, find a source for your definition. Example: "PII is any information that can link an account number to a specific person."
Whenever you give a number, date or statistic, back it up with a reliable source. Example: "Since 2000, more than 200 million accounts have been exposed in security breaches in the U.S. alone."
Whenever you state a controversial view, include a reference to help quiet doubts in the reader's mind. Example: "By now, the cloud is perfectly secure."
Note how all three examples look somewhat debatable without any sources. These would be much stronger if they were footnoted with precise references.
Q: Which are better: footnotes or end notes?
As you know, a footnote falls at the bottom of a page, while an endnote is placed at the end of a document. This small detail makes a big difference.
Footnotes provide immediate credibility. Many readers glance down the page to see them, so they tend to be noticed. Footnotes look scholarly and suggest that a document is well-researched.
Endnotes are more tidy visually, since they do not break up the reading experience of a page. But few people flip back to see them, so endnotes add less authority to a document.
It's your choice which format you use, but I recommend footnotes.
Q: How much text can I legally quote in a white paper?
You're generally safe to quote a sentence or two from any published source like a newspaper, magazine, blog or company website, if you give proper credit.
Some say that you can legally use 200 or 300 words from any source.
But this isn't carved in stone. According to the U.S. Copyright Office, "There is no specific number of words, lines, or notes that may safely be taken without permission." [1]
Copyright material can be quoted for comment, education, parody, reporting or research under "fair use" provisions.
Here is the key question to ask: Am I costing anyone money to quote what I want from their material?
Consider a book called "10 Dumb Things IT Managers Do to Undermine Their Careers." If you quote one point, along with the full title and publisher, you likely won't hurt sales of that book. You could even say you helped promote it.
But if you copy all 10 items with great chunks of text under each point, the author and publisher could argue that you hurt sales and cost them money.
To be practical, no one sues anyone else unless there's a great deal of money at stake. Just be reasonable and play fair, and you shouldn't have any legal problems.
Q: When do I need permission to quote from another document?
Some publishers that produce premium newsletters, market research or other original material want you to ask permission before you quote anything from them. Some industry analysts have this policy.
If you simply want to quote one factoid that has already been widely reported by other websites or publications, you can likely skip getting permission.
But if you grab all the best insights from a report priced at $3,995 and put them in your own white paper, the publisher may get pretty annoyed. Can you blame them?
Ask yourself the key question: Am I costing anyone money to quote what I want from their material?
If you do want to quote from a high-priced report, always consider asking permission from the publisher. You can usually find contact information at the front of the report.
Q: How should I format my footnotes?
Here are two real-world principles for footnotes to use for guidance:
- A footnote must provide enough detail for an interested reader to find that source if they wish.
- Footnote formats must be consistent within any white paper, and ideally across all white papers from a company.
Most white paper sponsors and readers will not notice much beyond these basics. You simply want your footnotes to be clear, accurate and complete.
For example, here is the format I use for footnotes in my white papers:
X: Author Name, "Title of Book or Article", Publication (for articles), Publisher, date, page.
To avoid any confusion, I give dates with the day first as in "20 September 2011."
Q: How can I cite a webpage?
If your source is a blog or website, you can append a URL to a footnote to show where and when you found the document online. For example:
retrieved 20 September 2011 from www.domain.com/page.html.
Q: Where can I find out more about footnotes?
If you want to venture deeper, there are several styles for academic footnotes, including:
- APA (American Psychological Association), often used in social sciences
- Chicago, often used in history and economics
- MLA (Modern Language Association), often used in liberal arts and literature.
Don't worry: The differences between these systems are probably too subtle for business white paper readers to notice.
But if you happen to be writing a white paper for academics, they may notice. Pick one footnote style and stick to it carefully, or have an academic review your formatting.
Written by Gordon Graham, this article appeared in the October 2011 edition of the WhitePaperSource Newsletter.
[1]: "Fair Use", U.S. Copyright Office, retrieved 20 September 2012 from http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html
