Reading in the Margins

The best conversations I have ever had with a book happened in its margins. Pencil notes, question marks, a single underlined word. Footnotes at the bottom of a page, or worse, at the end of a book, turn that conversation into a scavenger hunt. Notes in the margin keep it beside the sentence where it started.[1]

When I started this site, I knew I wanted the asides to live beside the text. Not because it looks clever, although it does, but because of how I write: every essay has a second, quieter voice that wants to add a date, a source, a small joke, a confession. Hiding that voice at the bottom of the page felt like asking it to wait in the hallway.

A very old idea

Medieval scribes wrote glosses around the main text: explanations, translations, arguments with the author. Later readers added commentary on the commentary, until some pages looked like a small crowd talking at once.[2] Printed books kept the habit for a while, in the form of marginal notes and shoulder notes, before the footnote won because it was easier to typeset.

Much later, a few designers of statistics and science books brought the idea back as sidenotes: small notes set in the margin, next to the line they explain.[3] The web mostly forgot this, because early screens were narrow and every pixel of margin felt expensive. So we inherited footnotes, and then made them worse with tiny numbers that jump you away from the text and back again.

Why it matters on a screen

Screens are wide now. On a laptop there is often more empty margin than text. Putting notes there costs nothing and saves the reader a jump: the eye moves a few centimetres to the right, reads the aside, and comes back. You never lose your place.

Phones are the obvious objection, and the answer is simple: on a narrow screen, the note opens under its paragraph when you tap the number. Same note, different shelf.[4] The important part is that the note stays close to its sentence in both cases.

How I write them

A sidenote should be optional. If a reader skips every one, the essay should still stand. If they read them all, they should get a second voice: the asides I would say out loud if we were talking across a table. A few rules I keep:

• One idea per note. If it needs two paragraphs, it belongs in the essay.

• Put the number after the exact word it belongs to, not at the end of the sentence out of habit.

• Use notes for sources, dates, small confessions and tangents. Never for the argument itself.

• Three to six per essay. More than that and the margin starts shouting.

What the margin gives back

Since moving my notes to the margin, readers write to me about the asides more than about the essays. I think it's because a note beside the text feels like an invitation rather than a citation. It says: here is something extra, if you want it. And most of us, it turns out, want it.[5]