Citation, Documentation of Sources

Q. I am editing an e-book that uses footnotes and endnotes. The author would like to use the footnotes to provide additional information that may be of interest to the reader. As a result, the footnotes are often long and require multiple citations. I’m not sure how to cite multiple sources in a footnote. Should the paraphrased statements be followed by the full citation in parentheses? Should the citations stand alone? The best option, I believe, is to include the material in the text of the book, but the author is greatly opposed to this.

A. It’s usual to have multiple citations in substantive notes. Their order should follow the writer’s order of argument. There’s no need to put the citations in parentheses or group them at the end of the note. Citations can be worked into the syntax of a sentence or stand alone as if they were sentences themselves (separated by semicolons or periods). Sometimes one or more citations begin a note and are followed by explication.

As for moving the discursive note content into the text, your author might feel that the content is peripheral, in which case it’s best to leave it in the notes.

You would benefit from looking at the notes in a variety of scholarly books at a library or bookstore. The figures in chapter 14 of CMOS might also be helpful.