Thursday, April 21, 2005

The [mis]use of footnotes

What is up with the use of * to signify a footnote? I just received this mailout about a training course, and it looks like this:

One-Day Seminar - Only $149+GST!

*New Brunswick
Moncton - June 29

*Nova Scotia
Halifax - June 28

Ontario
etc etc etc

I had to dig through the whole brochure to figure out where the footnote was and what it had to do with. Eventually found the footnote, and it had to do with adding HST instead of GST. So why is the * not beside the price, instead of the province? Having the * beside NB led me to believe there was something different about the NB course, or maybe it was enrollment-dependent, or something. Definite misplacement of an * if you ask me.

This is not the first time I've seen stuff like this. If you're going to use a footnote, please do me a favour and make it reasonable to find, i.e., it really should be on the same page, and actually relate to the item it is drawing attention to. ARGH!

2 comments:

Lisa said...

Yeah, having it on another page makes it an endnote. ~_^

I understand though; I hate that kind of thing too.

mare said...

you're not the one who has to teach this stuff.

repeatedly.

and even then they don't get it, so you send it back. and they get it wrong again.

repeatedly.

ugh.