Endnotes and Microsoft Word

In class we talked a lot about writing a bibliography for our papers.  When you understand the basics and have a good handbook for reference, it's not a difficult process.

Footnotes and Endnotes are more challenging.  In the old days of manual typewriters, we sat with rulers and pencils in order to appropriately place footnotes.  I've spent some time on my older version of Microsoft Word today today in order to familiarize myself with endnotes.  If you are using some other software, you may have to someone who knows it.

You can add endnotes even after you've typed in the bulk of you paper.  When you insert the first note, you can set the format for the rest of the paper.  Follow these steps:

• Insert your cursor at the point you want a note.  It should be right after the end punctuation without any spaces in between.  
• At the top of the toolbar, click on Insert then Reference then Footnote.
• When the Footnote and Endnote box opens, set the following formats:  Endnotes, Number format (1, 2, 3 ...), Start at 1, Numbering Continuous, Apply changes to Whole document.  Once you've set the formatting, select Apply.
• After you've set the format for the endnotes, you can use the shortcut keys for inserting the rest of the note numbers:  CTRL + ALT + D.  This will insert the next number.
• When you insert the numbers, the numbering starts at the end of the document.  These you'll have type in yourselves according to the MLA format.
• Word wants to add a line above the notes.  You need go through a couple steps to do that.  First, change the view from Print Layout to Normal.  Go back to View and click on Footnotes.  
• A pane will open at the bottom of the page.  This pane (box) has a dropdown menu, click on Endnote Separator and then delete the line.  Click Close and the box will close.  You can then go back to Print Layout.
• When you add or delete any notes, the numbers are automatically re-numbered.
• You will now have numbers in the body of your paper and the numbers at the end of the document.  You'll need to move the notes to its own page and title it "Endnotes."

Other helpful websites:
Microsoft Office

MVP Microsoft Helps