How and when do we record footnotes?

[berlingunning]

Hi. I'm recording a section of an old book that was translated from Italian into 16th century English and has lots of footnotes in it. My section in particular is laden with such notes. How and when do I read them during my recording?

[TriciaG]

Ask your BC. It's their decision.

[knotyouraveragejo]

Agree, ask the BC of the book, but also here is some general guidance on reading footnotes from the wiki.

Footnotes
What do you do if you're reading a nonfiction work, and the author has written footnotes? Should you read them? How do you read them? LibriVox doesn't really have a standard policy on these issues, and leaves it up to the discretion of the reader. But there are a few general guidelines.

If you are participating in a collaborative work, check the forum, and see if the BC has decided on a footnote policy for the book. If it hasn't been brought up already, ask what they want to do with footnotes. Often, they'll let you know if they want all the footnotes to be included, all of them to be omitted, or only source citations to be omitted. Most BCs either omit them altogether, or ask that you omit only those footnotes where the author is just listing the source of his information (e.g. a footnote like "See David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, p.264" could be omitted).

If you are a BC, you should let your readers know what you want done with footnotes, preferably somewhere on the front of your forum, so that they follow a consistent policy. If you are going solo, it's your choice. Sometimes footnotes add depth to the author's work; other times they are irrelevant or so numerous as to be distracting. So it's up to you.

The actual reading of a footnote is not too hard. All you do is pause briefly, say something like "Footnote (then read the footnote) End footnote". Pause briefly again and resume the text. The main consideration is where to put the footnote.

There are three basic options: 1) put it exactly where it is in the text, even if it's in the middle of a sentence; 2) put it at the end of the sentence or paragraph; 3) put it at the end of the chapter. It's up to you what you'd prefer to do, but here are some additional considerations:

Reading the footnote exactly where it is in the text might seem like greater fidelity to the author's intentions, but sometimes, if it's in the middle of a sentence, it could interrupt the author's train of thought when read aloud, in a way that it doesn't on the printed page. So it might be better to put it elsewhere, like at the end of the sentence or paragraph. On the other hand, if its exact placement seems important to you, or if it's at the beginning of a long sentence, you can interrupt the sentence, say the footnote, and then return to the beginning of the sentence.

If it's an especially long footnote (sometimes authors write 1 or 2 page footnotes), then you might want to put it off till the end of the sentence or paragraph. If the footnote is an aside, not central to the author's train of thought, then you could even put it at the end of the chapter. It's generally better to do this when the chapters are short and the footnotes long. To refresh your listeners' memories, you could say, "Footnote following the sentence (then read the sentence before the footnote) (then read the footnote) End footnote." Again, it's up to you how you want to read footnotes. The main thing to aim for is clarity for the listener.