Notes are numbered pieces of information you have chosen not to include in the main text. You include note numbers in your text to refer to this information. The extra information in your notes is either documentary or explanatory (substantive). Documentary notes contain information about the sources you used and give readers the opportunity to check the facts and opinions presented in your paper or thesis. Substantive notes contain information that does not fit into your main argument. Try to limit such notes. It is actually not such a great idea to burden your readers with information that falls outside the scope of your paper.

The main concern in annotation is that it is complete, consistent and error-free. Careless annotation renders your argument untransparent, unverifiable, unconvincing and hence useless to other researchers. Moreover, if you do not make clear when and where you are using someone else’s research or opinions, you are committing plagiarism.

If you follow the guidelines in this Researcher’s Manual, you will end up with consistent and correct notes and references. This system is in line with the Chicago Manual of Style, 16th edition (CMOS), today’s international yardstick for annotation in the humanities. CMOS is a system that is well suited to both textual and archival sources.

Outside of our department, you are free (and sometimes required) to use a different system. After all, there are no universal annotation principles. Each discipline and each journal can set its own rules. And within each discipline, the rules may differ from country to country. However, they all share the underlying principle of transparency and accountability.

When to Use Notes:

• when quoting or paraphrasing a source;
• when including information not considered general knowledge;
• when including information your readers may want to check.

Where to Put Note Numbers and Notes:

Note numbers come at the end of a sentence, or at least at the end of a clause that needs a reference, outside all punctuation marks. In case of quotations, note numbers are included immediately after the quote.

Notes are numbered consecutively in papers and theses. In dissertations and books, note numbering starts anew in every chapter.

Notes are incorporated either at the bottom of the page (footnotes) or at the end of your paper or thesis (endnotes).

What Should Be Included in a Note?

A documentary note contains all information necessary to find both the source itself and the information therein. The order and layout of this information is standardized (see Citation Guidelines)

Mandatory Elements:

• Author: first and last name(s) of author(s) or editor(s); if unavailable, the name of the institution responsible for publishing the text.
• Title: full title ( i.e. title and subtitle, separated by a colon). Note that titles must be capitalized in English.
• Editor(s), compiler(s) or translator(s): first and last name(s) if mentioned on the title page.
• Edition, if not the first (e.g. ‘2nd edn’ or ‘3rd rev. edn’).
• Series: if the text is part of a series, include the series title.
• Facts of publication: Place: publisher, year. Note the colon after place.
• Page number(s): if applicable.
• Electronic publications: URL or DOI (digital object identifier) for online publications; description of the medium used (DVD, CD-ROM) in other cases.

How to Format a Reference

You first need to sort your sources into publications and all other types of sources, such as archival documents, photographs, interviews and so on. There are many different types of publications, but there is a standard annotation format for most of them. Other sources can be anything, which complicates standardization. Archives have often devised their own preferred annotation method, which you can adopt. You can usually find this on their website.

Where to Find Data

For books, compilations or collections of sources, look at the title page (or page iii) and the copyright page rather than the cover. That is where you can find all the data you need. Journals often have a title page too. When dealing with journal articles, use the title as published above the article, not the one in the table of contents.

Use the exact information on the title page or the article’s actual title. Use the exact spelling even if that deviates from your preferred spelling (e.g. ‘behaviour’ instead of ‘behavior’). Otherwise, your readers will not be able to identify the publication you are referring to.

The same goes for authors’ names. Although English has a preference for ‘first name last name’, many Dutch authors are identified by their initials and last name. Copy whatever is on the title page and do not abbreviate full names or expand initials on your own. People may have initials you would not immediately expect (R. (Richard) for Dick) or may be using an abbreviation you would not immediately recognize (Daisy for M. (Margaret)).

For titles in languages other than English, keep the following in mind:

• If you are dealing with a book or article in a foreign language that uses the Latin alphabet, use the exact information on the title page or at the top of the article, followed by an English translation [in square brackets], if appropriate.
• Note that English capitalizes titles. Maintain the original capitalization in the original title, but capitalize your English translation, if supplying one. For examples, see Sample Citations.

Titles of books and journals are italicized. Title and subtitle are separated by a colon, unless the original uses a period as is the case in Dutch. Titles of articles, memoranda and other non-independent publications are not italicized, but put between double quotation marks.

How to Format a Note or Reference to a Publication

First of all, determine what type of publication you are dealing with:

• Book with a single author (i.e. monograph);
• Book with two or more authors;
• Book with one or more editors;
• Article (written by one or more authors) in an edited book;
• Journal article;
• Article in a periodical;
• Article on a website;
• Collection of sources;
• Source within a collection of sources;
• Volume (book, collection) in a series;
• …

>> For more details, see Citation Guidelines