Post by Howard Metcalfe on Dec 3, 2006 13:43:59 GMT -5
Q: How do footnotes work within a person's notes?
A: You write notes as if you were writing a section in a book. You insert footnotes for evidence you present, and the footnotes may contain citations. For example, you might write "Michael Moriarty noted that Mary was born on 15 June 1762" and then want to insert a footnote after "Moriarty" that references your source. The source in this case might be to an article published in NEHGS written by Moriarty. Your vital data entry (birth date and place) would just reflect your conclusion that Moriarty's info was valid.
To accomplish this, place a caret (^) symbol after "Moriarty". Place the cursor at the end of the paragraph, insert a numbered footnote paragraph by clicking on the "Footnoe with #" button, and enter your source citation. Then the notes you just marked it up would look like this:
...Michael Moriarty^ noted that Mary was born on 15 June 1762....
~t{Moriarty}, Vol. I, p. 252.
(The little t above stands for the dagger symbol, option-t.)
You can continue a numbered footnote with an unnumbered footnote paragraph by placing the cursor at the end of the numbered footnote paragraph, clicking on the "Footnote w/o #" button, and entering further footnote text.
Each numbered footnote must be matched in order by a caret in the main text. In reports, PAWriter will replace the carets with consecutive numbers in superscripts. It will also replace the daggers in front of the footnotes with consecutive numbers in superscripts. Thus, as long as you have matched caret symbols and dagger symbols, you will get the correct footnote references in the main text and correct footnote numbers in front of the corresponding footnotes. If you forget a caret or a dagger, PAWriter will tell you one of them is unmatched when you try to enter the notes.
Good practice is to enter each footnote paragraph right after the paragraph containng the reference to it (the caret). When PAWriter generates a report, it automatically moves all footnote paragraphs to the end of the main paragraphs in the report.
PAWriter fills in the numbers for you because you really don't want to renumber them yourself every single time you insert more text with new footnotes, or reorder some text.
You can click on the View Draft Notes button to get a general idea of how the notes would look in reports. And in the main window you can choose Person menu > View Draft for This Person to get a general idea of how the entire entry for the person will look in reports.
You can see an example of the results of this approach by clicking here: www.lanopalera.net/genealogy/ThomasMetcalf/ThomasMetcalf.html
(I currently have more than 26,000 numbered footnotes in my data file.)
This is not like other programs where you enter a citation for a vital datum. In PAWriter, you present your evidence in the notes and footnote the sources therein, as you see in most scholary books. The summary vital data just represents your conclusions based on the evidence entered in the notes.
Again, this is different from all other genealogical programs (that I know of) and provides almost total freedom in how you present your work -- a rather different philosophy than exhibited in the other programs.
A: You write notes as if you were writing a section in a book. You insert footnotes for evidence you present, and the footnotes may contain citations. For example, you might write "Michael Moriarty noted that Mary was born on 15 June 1762" and then want to insert a footnote after "Moriarty" that references your source. The source in this case might be to an article published in NEHGS written by Moriarty. Your vital data entry (birth date and place) would just reflect your conclusion that Moriarty's info was valid.
To accomplish this, place a caret (^) symbol after "Moriarty". Place the cursor at the end of the paragraph, insert a numbered footnote paragraph by clicking on the "Footnoe with #" button, and enter your source citation. Then the notes you just marked it up would look like this:
...Michael Moriarty^ noted that Mary was born on 15 June 1762....
~t{Moriarty}, Vol. I, p. 252.
(The little t above stands for the dagger symbol, option-t.)
You can continue a numbered footnote with an unnumbered footnote paragraph by placing the cursor at the end of the numbered footnote paragraph, clicking on the "Footnote w/o #" button, and entering further footnote text.
Each numbered footnote must be matched in order by a caret in the main text. In reports, PAWriter will replace the carets with consecutive numbers in superscripts. It will also replace the daggers in front of the footnotes with consecutive numbers in superscripts. Thus, as long as you have matched caret symbols and dagger symbols, you will get the correct footnote references in the main text and correct footnote numbers in front of the corresponding footnotes. If you forget a caret or a dagger, PAWriter will tell you one of them is unmatched when you try to enter the notes.
Good practice is to enter each footnote paragraph right after the paragraph containng the reference to it (the caret). When PAWriter generates a report, it automatically moves all footnote paragraphs to the end of the main paragraphs in the report.
PAWriter fills in the numbers for you because you really don't want to renumber them yourself every single time you insert more text with new footnotes, or reorder some text.
You can click on the View Draft Notes button to get a general idea of how the notes would look in reports. And in the main window you can choose Person menu > View Draft for This Person to get a general idea of how the entire entry for the person will look in reports.
You can see an example of the results of this approach by clicking here: www.lanopalera.net/genealogy/ThomasMetcalf/ThomasMetcalf.html
(I currently have more than 26,000 numbered footnotes in my data file.)
This is not like other programs where you enter a citation for a vital datum. In PAWriter, you present your evidence in the notes and footnote the sources therein, as you see in most scholary books. The summary vital data just represents your conclusions based on the evidence entered in the notes.
Again, this is different from all other genealogical programs (that I know of) and provides almost total freedom in how you present your work -- a rather different philosophy than exhibited in the other programs.