Aaron Haspel has a longish essay railing against the use of endnote — and especially poorly formatted endnotes — in serious books, arguing for the revival of footnotes in most cases. Kieran Healy takes up the cause as well, giving parenthetical citations a few good licks.
I share these biases as well, thinking of both non-footnote styles as a holdover from the days of typewriters that serve no purpose in an age of personal computers. Then again, I like to refer to notes as I’m reading because they give substantial insights and context. Indeed, footnotes can sometimes reveal obvious flaws that would likely be unrevealed in endnotes, especially with matters of timing.
Still, my suspicion is that few people bother to read the notes and most would therefore find them distracting if they were right on the page.
