Anybody else feel they spend more time editing footnotes than writing the actual thesis???

Yup, footnotes are officially a nightmare. I've never really used them properly until now (thesis) - not sure what I did in the past...maybe 'fake' footnotes - small font bit at end of page. I found I kept getting blank pages everywhere that I couldn't delete because of the section breaks (sorted now).

I am always slightly confused as to when it is appropriate to footnote (instead of say putting an aside in brackets) * , or as a ref in an endnote or bibliography.
What is the official line on footnotes?


* pea is pulling a 'not sure' face.

I use Chicago so all my references are listed as footnotes

Annoyed because I found out today that footnotes count towards the final word limit (they didn't for my Masters) - thought I could dump a lot of stuff in the footnotes and stop myself going over the limit

Do your appendices count towards the word limit? My appendices didn't and hence, they were huge (separate volume!)

pea, i don't know any official lines, but this is what i think about it:
brackets - avoid if possible. if the thing you want to put into brackets is important, then don't put it into brackets. if it isn't important, leave it out altogether.
footnotes - anything that is not strictly helpful for the point i am trying to make in a section/chapter, but is still an important overall input. it's important but if left in the main text it would distract from the point i'm making and would make the text difficult to read.

however i've much more experience writing in german than in english, and styles/conventions might be different.