Question for J University folks...

[Taro Toporific]

I've gotta question for from any of you folks in a Japanese university.

Why is it standard for Japanese papers to have randomly numbered footnotes/endnotes?

That is, a page 1 the first footnote is [4] and the second footnote will be [6]. In front of me I have a paper to review/edit from Todai and the first page starts with [14], [16] and [17]. On page two [3] and [4] are mentioned but [1] is ofter never mentioned anywhere.

This happens to me on almost every Japanese paper in English I've seen in the past 20 years. WTF, is counting that difficult in Japanese!?

(I get a blank stare and No-Commento whenever I ask this question of the authors.)

[GomiGirl]

Is it related to the listings in the bibliography?

Footnotes should be on a page by page basis - ie starting at 1 for each page... well that is how I did it in the good ol' days....

[Taro Toporific]

Is it related to the listings in the bibliography?

Footnotes should be on a page by page basis - ie starting at 1 for each page... well that is how I did it in the good ol' days....

Technically these are "endnotes" and all references are at the end of the paper. Yep, footnotes go "page by page basis - ie starting at 1 for each page".

This is more disconcerting to me because Japanese use more endnotes/footnotes than English. Companies you deal with all the time like DoCoMo do this random endnoting all the time in their documents.

I'm just wondering if I only deal with SICK WEASELS or if this is common footnote style in Japanese schools too. (I'm looking for the source of the sickeness.)

[GargoyleTS]

Editing. You cut out the part it related to, and then delete the footnote for it. And then they don't re-number all the footnotes for some reason...or maybe not! Possible reason is proof-of-origin purposes? (like MS Word document history)

Maybe its a cry for help with this guy...he did start with Shi

Or perhaps they count lines or paragraphs and number according to that.

Shooting completely in the dark here, but those are the first reasons that come to mind.

[Taro Toporific]

Editing. You cut out the part it related to, and then delete the footnote for it. And then they don't re-number all the footnotes for some reason...or maybe not! Possible reason is proof-of-origin purposes? (like MS Word document history).

For the most part, these are Japanese MS Word documents translated into English. They never use the footnote function in MS Word and they seem to prefer random endnotes. Yes it seems like the orginal document starts with a base set of endnotes and then they add more notes as needed, However, it never occurs to them to renumber when the Japanese document is done and "camera-ready copy" is sent to the printer or publishing house.

[GargoyleTS]

Are they translated by a person, or a really good machine? If person, could it be a "counting error"? i.e. Animals etc having different counting methods? Maybe papers have one too.

Or it's the lazy editing thing. Cut this, move that and delete the ones for what you cut. If you get an electronic one, google for info on how to check the history of the document (cause I forgot how). I bet it is editing, lazy or by approval only or maybe by draft. Directors get all the breaks, translators get working copies only and you get to see the results of their petty attempts to keep their sanity!

[Taro Toporific]

Are they translated by a person.... Directors get all the breaks, translators get working copies only and you get to see the results of their petty attempts to keep their sanity!

Ohhh, Buddha the horrors I see at camera-ready or post-production!

I've taken the blame for 5,000-copy print runs of manuals with chapter titles that have read: "LINE CUNT" (count), "HYMEN" (Hi-man), "GOD-CODE" (goods code aka inventory number).....