Freedom & Footnotes

When we prepared our papers using typewriters, we were required to include footnotes. (If you never used a typewriter, stop and think about how difficult that must have been.)

Now that computers have simplified printing footnotes, footnotes are no longer de rigueur. Today, all notes are consigned to the end of the book and printed in the smallest font size available.

I keep a second bookmark in the back of the book I'm reading to keep track of what footnote I'm on, but in this age of making everything easy, shouldn't the notes be on the same page as the text?

Why have we stopped using footnotes? 

The answer may be in this TedTalks video in which historian Ray Raphael addresses the importance of footnotes. "If you believe whatever they say, you are not free and they are your masters. First rule of freedom: don't trust 'em. Second rule of freedom: find out for yourself." 

While writers are informing us, they're also hiding information from us.

So, when you are reading, read the footnotes and look up the sources. And if you're publishing a book, show a little respect for your readers by using footnotes rather than end notes.