How to Create Footnotes in Microsoft Word

How to Make Footnotes often makes final year students dizzy. This is one of the factors that makes it lazy because it turns out that there are still many students who are completing their final thesis yet don't understand how to make footnotes. For this reason, this article is here to answer and try to share so that the thesis can be completed quickly.

What is Footnote or Foot Defect

Footnotes or footnotes are an obligation for scientific manuscript writers who consciously quote other people's works in their scientific works. Of course this footnote or footnote serves as information from where the quote comes from. This is required so that your thesis or thesis is not labeled as plagiarism. Also so that readers can learn more about the topics you cover in the thesis.

How to Write Footnotes or Footnotes for Thesis or Thesis

As in the previous article on how to create a bibliography, we have explained that the arrangement of writing footnotes and writing a bibliography is not much different. It's just that for the placement of the bibliography it is written on a separate page, while footnotes are written under each page that contains quotations.

In other words, one by one footnote or footnotes are rewritten in the bibliography as a reference source. Even so, in writing footnotes it will be different when we quote from books, thesis, physical journals or online journals, mass media or online media and other scientific manuscripts. 

The rules for writing footnotes differ from one institution to another. So before making footnotes, we suggest you to first master the guidelines for writing scientific papers set by the campus.

However, how to make footnotes are generally written by fulfilling several elements in the form of reference information, namely:

• Name of Author or Author, namely the name of the author or author of the book or article you are citing. For example: Soejono Soekanto;
• The title of the book or article is the title of the manuscript you are quoting. Is it a book or other scientific articles such as journals and even online media. Usually written in quotations For example: "Normative Legal Research (A Brief Overview)";
• The year of publication is the time the book or article was published. For example: 2004; 
• Publisher Name is the name of the publisher. For example: Rajawali Press; and
• Page Number, which is which page of the book you quoted. Usually written briefly according to the guidelines for writing scientific manuscripts. For example: p. 56.

Example:

• Soejono Soekanto, "Normative Legal Research (A Brief Overview)", (Rajawali Press: Jakarta, 2004). p. 56

Some Terms in Making Footnotes

Of course we are familiar with the words Ibid, Op. cit, and Loc.cit, Some of these terms are familiar to final year students or those who have passed the research writing methods course. To reiterate, some of the terms in the footnotes have the following functions:

• Ibid, is an abbreviation of ibidem, which means in the same place. If a source has just been cited, it will be quoted again without/not interspersed with other library sources. Then it is enough to use ibid and followed by the book page number (provided it is still in the same place). Example Ibid. p. 13. If the footnote refers to the same page as the previous footnote, the ibid must be replaced with Loc.cit.
• Op. cit, is an abbreviation of Opere citato, which means it has been quoted. If a library or source has been cited in a footnote and has been interspersed by one or more other sources to be cited again, the footnote can be shortened by simply writing the author followed by op.cit.
• loc. cit, Loc.cit is an abbreviation of Loco citato which means quoted from the same place. If you want to quote the same page from a source that has just been quoted without/not yet interspersed with other literature sources, the footnote is simply abbreviated as Loc.cit.

How to Create Footnotes or Footnotes in Microsoft Word

After knowing how to write footnotes or footnotes, now we want to practice how to make footnotes in Microsoft Word. The steps are as below:

• Open the thesis file in Microsoft Word
• Place the cursor, or click at the end of the quote paragraph;
• On the menu bar, click References;
• Click Insert Footnote. Or alternatively keyboard, press Alt + Ctrl + F keys simultaneously;
• Type footnotes according to the writing guidelines; and
• Do the second to fifth steps above in the following quotes.

How to make a footnote above we often use in writing scientific articles. Until now we have not found another way that is easier than the steps above. Thus this short article, hopefully useful.