Inserting Footnotes in Word and Google Docs
- 1. Inserting Footnotes in Microsoft Word 2007 and Google Docs<br />Microsoft Word<br />There is a “References” tab up at the top of the Microsoft Word “ribbon”. If you select this tab, you will see several options for adding references to your document, including a button labeled “Insert Footnote”. <br />To begin, place your cursor at the point where you want to insert a footnote and click the button. Footnote numbers need to go outside all sentence punctuation except dashes; for example:<br />“…and they rode off into the sunset.”1<br />…while most animals will not,2 the possum…<br />… this animal is the largest aquatic animal3—several times larger than the largest land animal…<br />Word will automatically insert the next consecutive number in superscript.<br />Word will also insert a line at the bottom of your page, and give you a place to type your reference.<br />The footnote itself is single-spaced, but the footnote section needs to be double-spaced. Word does not automatically do this; the line spacing function can be found on the “Home” tab, in the “Paragraph” section. Highlight your footnotes, and select the “Line spacing” drop-down menu. Make sure that the check-mark is next to the 1.0 spacing, then add in an extra return between your footnotes (this is the simplest way).<br />Google Docs (will transfer into Word for final paper submission)<br />Google docs lets you make footnotes with Insert Footnote. It plops a “#” symbol where your cursor was and pops up a box off to the left. You want to type in the correct footnote information. When you are ready, go to File Download as Word, and all of those lefty sidenote boxes are converted into actual footnotes in the resulting Word document. You will want to adjust the formatting as above, since the default conversion is not up to the MLA’s exacting standards.<br />