Charles Sullivan highlights the existence of the asterisk (or in some law reviews the dagger) footnote in his article "The Under-Theorized Asterisk Footnote", 93 Geo. L.J. 1093-1116 (2005) available at SSRN. This is an amusing, hyperbolic examination of what is perhaps a deservedly under-examined part of legal scholarship. The author finds that the author-name footnote (usually indicated by an asterisk or dagger) has moved over the past few decades from the minimalist approach of listing isolated authors to one that includes extensive involvement with other scholars. The author theorizing that the purpose being one of signalling to law review editors the article's importance by association.
Posted by doyle at August 2, 2005 3:15 PM