Footnotes included in the word count?

I was wondering how many of you include footnotes in the word count?

I have studied history at both Exeter and Royal Holloway. It seems Exeter did not include footnotes but RH do. It seems silly to include them if they are mere citations, why not include the bibliography also?!

Reply 1

MazalTov89

The Politics department at Liverpool are very vague with the word count in essays, they just state the number of words they expect in an essay and that's it. Personally, I don't include the footnotes or bibliography in the word count in my essays as I feel like I'm cheating. Geeky, I know

Reply 2

dolly123

Thanks for the responce. I would never of thought to include footnotes let alone a bibliography, within the wordcount (it seems almost pointless).

Reply 3

hypocriticaljap

or tables and figures.

Reply 4

~ Purple Rose ~

PS Reviewer

I've always been told not to include them.

Reply 5

jesss_t

This has always annoyed me! It seems alot of institutions ask for the footnotes to be included in the count. I really don't understand the logic - if it was wanted to be included in the word count by the writer, surely it would be written in the main body of the text rather than as a footnote! sort of defeats the object of a footnote.
Personally, I thought (and have also been taught) that it was correct not to count them, but since being at university apparently that is not the case.

Reply 6

MBGraphix

At UEA Law School we are told to include the footnotes, but not bibliography, the justification for doing so it would seem is that a bibliography is purely about citations, whereas footnotes can be and are used to provide commentary and expansion to the main text, thus if they weren't included people could include a considerable amount more for the same word count..

I think some people are missing the point that word counts are not there for you to have an idea of the amount of words required, they are there purely to set a maximum.. it would be more advantageous to have footnotes excluded, as it gives you more space to put your points across, the underlying theory behind word counts is that you should be able to make your arguments and information concise and targeted rather than just having pages and pages of irrelevant commentary and facts.. :biggrin:

Reply 7

hypocriticaljap

MBGraphix

I think some people are missing the point that word counts are not there for you to have an idea of the amount of words required, they are there purely to set a maximum

Really? How about word counts that allow 10% leeway. Not a max then.

Reply 8

MBGraphix

hypocriticaljap

e.g 1000+10% = 1100 Max.

maybe at some uni's they have wordcounts with a minimum amount of words aswell, otherwise it still applies

Reply 9

philjw

MBGraphix

Same on my course - you count the footnotes but not the bibliography.

An even grayer area would be, do you include the Title within the wordcount? Some titles can be quite long - I had a 16-word title on one essay this term, which considering I was within five words of the upper 10% boundary, could have made a big difference and made me have to cut out a whole sentence, which on a short (2500-word) essay can be quite hard.