Duly Noted

Whenever I had to write essays in high school or university, I had trouble with the footnotes.¹ The impression I got from teachers' instructions was to footnote anything that I got out of a book or any other source. But that always led to dozens of notes; far more than anyone else. And, far more than the teachers expected, since they would dock marks for using too many.

Occasionally I would back off and try to footnote fewer things, but without fail I would then get an angry message that I hadn't noted enough things. This was made worse by the fact that teachers and profs would always deliver that particular message through an abstruse accusation of plagiarism.²

I think now I have a better handle on it: you're noting anything the reader should know the original source of, whether it's a little known fact, or the ideas and opinions of others. Too bad I don't have a chance to ever use that knowledge now.

I mention this because it occurs to me that the web can be seen as a big set of essays, with the links as the footnotes. And often those notes are added for the same reasons: credit where credit is due, our backing up facts.

Usually in this blog I've added links to other topics to provide background for readers who may not be familiar with a topic. Sometimes I've used a link to provide evidence of a fact I've mentioned. I wonder if I should do more of that. In the throbbing vortex of misinformation that is the Internet, the definition of "disputed information" is much bigger than it would be in am academic essay.³ It might be a good idea if we all started working harder to link to sources just to stop the nightmare scenario of everyone providing their own facts and simply trying to out yell each other.


1. Or endnotes
2. Keep in mind that in those pre-internet days, actual plagiarism was rare, so the teacher could do this schtick with everyone understanding the accusation wasn't real. I don't know what they do now that real plagiarism is much more common.
3. Consider how many web sites and the communities around them would consider evolution, global warming, or equality of the races and genders to be open questions.