Windschuttle’s footnotes
Keith Windschuttle on footnotes, December 1997:
Readers are more likely annoyed when, on those few occasions they do want to look at a reference, they have to hunt through endnotes rather than simply drop their eyes to the bottom of the page. Or, if the practice I described above becomes commonplace, they will have to log on to the Internet, load up their search engine and endure all the usual delays before they find what they want.
These days, Windschuttle edits Quadrant, which doesn’t publish footnotes, or endnotes, and doesn’t even publish them online: “A footnoted version is available from the Quadrant office.” If you want to check the references, you need to ask Windschuttle’s permission.
That, of course, is not the extent of his attitude-shift when it comes to footnotes. Margaret Simons reports that the latest issue of Quadrant carries a hoax article, peppered with dodgy footnotes, and even including a declaration that the author wanted to spark a debate similar to the one that followed the infamous Sokal hoax.
“At most, all that ‘Gould’ has done is misrepresent the contents of the works she cites”, says Windschuttle in response. No big deal; not my problem. And anyway, the CSIRO exists! Pathetic.
As Jeff Sparrow puts it: “if you live by the footnote, you die by the footnote.” The man who built a huge media profile by scouring the footnotes of his political opponents and accusing them of academic dishonesty and fraud has decided that when it comes to his own magazine, there’s no need to bother.