APA How-To: Using Footnotes

Recently, during a Paper Review Appointment, a student came to me with a question about footnotes. They had received some feedback from an instructor indicating that footnotes were appropriate in their piece, and they wanted to know how to properly incorporate them. I immediately started to do some research. I always associated footnotes with other citation styles, but I hadn’t encountered them in working with scholar-practitioners here at Walden. So, I turned straight to my trusty Sixth Edition APA Publication Manual. To my surprise, APA-style research writing allows for two types of footnotes: content footnotes and copyright permissions.

Before I get too far into explaining these, here’s a word of caution. Footnotes should not be haphazardly thrown into your writing. They are meant for these specific instances and are discouraged by APA for general use. So, use these rarely if ever. But, nonetheless, here are the instances where footnotes are appropriate:

Content Footnotes: Content footnotes, as the APA Publication Manual states, “supplement and amplify substantive information in the text” (p. 37). This may sound like an element that could easily be included in many pieces, but be careful. The manual goes on to stipulate some pretty specific rules about how to use these. As these distract the reader from text in the body of your writing, they should be short and convey only one idea. As the manual indicates, “an author integrates and article best by presenting important information in the text, not in a footnote” (p. 37). So, if possible, you want to incorporate ideas into your writing the old-fashioned way, by using sentences.

Copyright Footnotes: If you are using copyrighted information, you need to reference that in a footnote. To again quote my beloved manual, “Copyright permission footnotes acknowledge the source of lengthy quotations, scale and test items, and figures and tables that have been reprinted or adapted” (p. 37). The key here is that these have been copyrighted. Most commonly, this is appropriate when using a table from another source.

When a copyright footnote is called for, it should be at the bottom of the page and formatted in the following way:

From a Journal – From [or The data in column 1 are from] “Title of Article,” by A. N. Author and C. O. Author, year, Title of Journal, Volume, p. xx. Copyright [year] by the Name of the Copyright Holder. Reprinted [or adapted] with permission.

From a Book – From [or The data in column 1 are from] Title of Book (p. xxx) by A. N. Author and C. O. Author, year, Place of Publication: Publisher. Copyright [year] by the Name of Copyright Holder. Reprinted [or adapted] with permission.

Other guidelines state that footnotes should be consecutively numbered in the order in which they appear in the text. They should be superscripted and be followed by any punctuation with the exception of a dash. They should look like this: Text ¹ . In the text of the document, you should reference the footnote in a parenthetical, like this: (see Footnote 3).

As often happens, this student’s question launched me into a research experience that resulted in a discovery of a new nuance of APA style and formatting. In trying to best manage a specific writing situation, digging a bit into my APA Publication Manual yielded some interesting results. So, if you encounter a case where you need to provide copyright information for a source that you use, format it in this way. If you would like to read a bit more about footnotes, check out pages 37 and 38 of the Sixth Edition APA Publication manual. 

Michael Dusek is a Writing Instructor in the Walden University Writing Center. He has taught writing at universities in both Minnesota and Wisconsin, and enjoys helping students improve their writing. To Michael, the essay is both expressive and formal, and is a method for creative problem solving. In his personal life, he enjoys the outdoors, books, music, and all other types of art. 

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