Footnotes and the neurodivergent writer

 I write with footnotes. Footnotes have replaced the parentheses that were littered through my writing. I used an eclectic mix of brackets, commas and dashes, depending on the type of parenthesis or my mood that day.

I still free-write chaotically. However, I now edit most of the parentheses out the main text and into a footnote. Why? Parentheses tend to disrupt the clarity of the story or narrative. I prize clarity highly and I can see how the parentheses within the text are disruptive. Yet, diversions feel essential to me as a neurodivergent writer.

I am autistic, and as a writer I can be pedantic about the need to qualify an assertion or provide additional context. As a reader, my concentration gets broken when I hit something that I feel needs more explanation or context for me to process what I’m reading.

I also have ADHD which, for me, means linear thinking is an impossibility. I need to draw connections and show people some of the treasures I found down rabbit holes.

And that brings me to footnotes and the neurodivergent academic writer.

I still thank Gideon Calder in my head every time I sit to write. He became my main doctoral supervisor and I am amazed he still has hair and that it hasn’t gone white. He was the person who suggested using footnotes for my thesis.

Footnotes provide a simple way to alert a reader to additional context or connections without disrupting the flow. As a writer, it enables me to craft something that means the reader isn’t left struggling to find the key information or flow in an argument. As a reader, other people’s footnotes let me postpone diving down the rabbit hole of wanting to know more in order to assimilate what I am reading. For me at least, the tiny superscript number doesn’t distract from the flow of reading because my brain doesn’t try to read it.

Endnotes and footnotes fulfil this purpose. However, having a footnote at the bottom of the page means it is easy to glance down to check the additional context or connections whenever suits. I value this highly. The act of flicking to the end of a chapter or paper destroys the flow of my thinking about what I am reading.

Footnotes will not work for all writers or all readers. However, if your writing is littered with parentheses, you may want to explore their use.