Monday, 13 October 2014

Post 8: Notes, Examples and Footnotes

This week the topic of our blog relates to the various rules regarding the drafting of notes and examples, footnotes to the text, and notes and footnotes to figures and tables.

See 6.5.1, 6.5.2, 6.6.5.9, 6.6.5.10, 6.6.6.6 and 6.6.6.7 in the Internal Regulations Part 3 for additional guidance.

How do I draft notes and examples that are integrated into the body of the text?
a)     They shall only be used for giving additional information to help understand the document.
 
b)     They shall not contain:
      
       1)      requirements;

2)      instructions;
       3)      recommendations;

4)      permission.
See below for a detailed explanation of what not to include and citations to the relevant sections of the Internal Regulations Part 3 for further guidance.
 

c)      Notes may be written as a statement of fact.
 
d)     Notes and examples should be placed after the paragraph to which they refer.
e)     Regarding their numbering, notes and examples are not numbered unless more than one appears in the same clause, subclause, figure or table.
You will notice that the notes in Clause 3 (Terms and definitions) do not follow the same rules as notes integrated into the text. In Clause 3, notes are designated as Note to entry, they may provide provisions and further technical details and are systematically numbered.
How do I draft footnotes to the text?
They shall be kept to a minimum and shall give additional information only. As for the notes and examples integrated into the text, they shall not contain requirements.
Footnotes to the text shall be placed at the foot of the relevant page and be separated from the text by a horizontal line on the left of the page.
They shall normally be distinguished by Arabic numerals, beginning with 1, followed by one parenthesis. The footnotes shall be referred to in the text by inserting the same numerals, as superscripts, after the word or sentence in question: 1),2),3), etc.
What about notes to figures and tables?
Notes to figures or tables are located above footnotes to tables or figures. They are not numbered unless there is more than one.
They shall not contain requirements. It is not necessary that notes to figures and tables be referred to.
Finally, how do I draft footnotes to figures and tables?
Footnotes to figures and tables follow different rules, not only in regard to their numbering, but also their drafting:
a)     Footnotes to figures and tables shall be distinguished by superscript lower case letters, beginning with "a". The footnotes shall be referred to in the figure or in the table by inserting the same superscript lower case letter.
b)     They may contain requirements.
Any questions about the topics covered in this post? Post us a comment!
And don’t forget to follow us – next week we will be blogging about figures…
 
 
© All CCMC posted information is copyrighted by CEN and/or CENELEC.  Extracts may be used providing that the source is mentioned.
Please note that the CCMC posted information is drawn from a variety of sources already publicly available on the CEN and CENELEC websites.

No comments:

Post a Comment