Modern Arabic Literature

Sample footnotes

1. James A. Beckford, ‘The Restoration of “Power” to the Sociology of Religion’, in Church-State Relations, ed. by Thomas Robbins (New York: Transaction Publishers, 1987), pp. 13–37.

2. Allan G. Grapard, ‘Problematic Representations in the Study of Japanese Religions’, Religion, 21.4 (1991), 389–96.

3. Beckford, ‘Restoration’, p. 21.

4. Ibid., p. 23.

5. Akiko Yoshimoto, Religious Uprisings (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998).

6. Grapard, ‘Problematic Representations’, p. 392.

7. Yoshimoto, Uprisings, p. 302.

8. Kent Bach, ‘Performatives’, in Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy <http://www.rep.routledge.com> [accessed 3 March 2015]

Comments on the sample footnotes:

Fn. 1: This is the first mention in the notes of the work by Beckford, so full publication details are given. The title of the article is shown in single quote marks; “power” therefore gets double quote marks, even if originally it only had single quote marks. The book title is shown in italics. The full details of authors/editors, place, publisher and publication date (followed by the full span of page nos.) are given. If you wanted to refer to a particular page (eg. 14) in this first reference to the article, you would add it in brackets: <pp. 13–37 (p. 14)>. Note the use of commas and colons to separate different elements. (Sample footnotes 3 and 4 show how the same article is referred to subsequently.)

Fn. 2: In this case the work in which the article appears is a journal so the journal title is shown in italics. ‘21.4’ means ‘Volume 21, issue (or number) 4’.

Fn. 3: If only one work by Beckford is cited in your essay, this citation could read: <Beckford, p. 21.> In our example, even though only one work by Beckford has been cited so far, more of Beckford’s publications will be cited later, so an abbreviated title: <Beckford ‘Restoration’> is used to avoid any confusion. It is up to you to abbreviate so that the reference is recognisable and unambiguous, but keep it minimal. Don’t repeat the full publication details except in the Bibliography at the end.

Fn. 4: If two successive notes refer to exactly the same work you can use ‘ibid.’ (meaning ‘same as previous’) in the second footnote.

Fn. 5: A straightforward book reference (so the book title is in italics).

Fn. 6: An abbreviated reference to an article cited earlier.

Fn. 7: An abbreviated reference to a book mentioned earlier (so the book title is in italics).