🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <Dec.9.23.45.49.1989.8147@paul.rutgers.edu> gaynor@topaz.rutgers.edu writes:
>Under which circumstances is one more appropriate than the other?
>I usually decide this by feel, most often in favor of footnotes.
>Would you textperts illumine me on the ways of extratextual notes?

Marginal notes are almost never used in most texts. Where they do occur,
they serve on of three purposes: most commonly, they are annotations for
people who are unlikely to be familiar with the work in question. For 
example, I have a kids' edition of Around the Word in Eighty Days which 
defines words that kids might not know in the margins. Another common use
is for cross-references. The New Jerusalem Bible, for example, indicates
parallel and related passages through marginal notes. My LaTeX class handouts
use them as pointers to the LaTeX book for more information (although I'm
rapidly approaching the point where I will be independent from that work
with my notes). The third context I've seen them used is in reproducing
the annotations of past commentators. In particular, biblical commentaries
often use them (along with footnotes, headnotes, and interlinear notes, with
each margin plus the three above representing a separate commentator! one
work I encountered had no less than six running commentaries along with the
text). Also, I have an edition of Boswell's life of Johnson which reproduces
the marginalia of Hester Thrale using marginal notes.

Rather than use something like \marginpar directly, however, I recommend 
that you use another macro which calls \marginpar. This will make changing
marginal notes into footnotes or endnotes somewhat easier.

-dh
-- 
"Odi et amo, quare id faciam, fortasse requiris?
   nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior"          -Catullus
D.A. Hosek.                        UUCP: uunet!jarthur!dhosek
                               Internet: dhosek@hmcvax.claremont.edu