Thoughts about endnotes and footnotes

[pretty_plant]

I hate endnotes with a burning passion. They are honestly so weirdly placed but so commonly used in a lot of books. I don't understand the whole point of endnotes. Am I supposed to like awkwardly using my hand to keep the endnote part open while reading the text? Should I finish reading the main text then move to reading the endnotes, by which time I have already forgotten most of the main text and which part the endnote adds to?

Why in the world don't they just make endnotes footnotes? I want to read the notes when I see that tiny number next to a word. I just don't have the energy to keep the endnote part awkwardly with one finger and open to that part whenever something comes up in the text with the tiny number next to it. When a book has endnotes, a well-formatted ebook is always superior because you can just tap on the small number and voila, you can read the endnote immediately.

Another thing I hate is also endnote or footnote for poems. For some reasons, they believe in my basic counting skills and always just put the number of the line in the poem instead of adding a tiny number next to the word that gets explained. I don't want to count. I definitely don't want to try and search for that single word that gets explained in the text amidst a lot of lines.

Comments

[regshoe]

Argh, I feel just the same way! I'm reading a book with endnotes at the moment and it's so annoying, it'd be so much easier to read footnotes on the same page. Perhaps there's a feeling that footnotes break up the text, or are too obtrusive for people who don't want to read them?