The footnote ban: where journals want that text to go instead.

No, not at every journal. Some prohibit footnotes outright, and PLOS ONE is one of them: its submission guidelines say footnotes are not permitted and ask you to move the information into the main text or the reference list instead. So the question at submission is rarely whether you may keep a footnote. It is where each footnote you have already written now belongs.

Is the footnote rule a preference or a hard requirement?

At the journals that carry it, a hard requirement. The PLOS ONE rule reads: "Footnotes are not permitted; move information into main text or reference list."

There is no word-count exception and no "only where necessary" clause. The rule sits on the technical checklist that editorial staff run before an editor reads the science, alongside line numbering and reference style, so a manuscript threaded with footnotes can come back as a correction request that resets your place in the queue. Not every journal bans them; some allow footnotes in the text, others restrict notes to tables. As with abstract word limits, which swing from 150 to 300 words by journal, the only policy that binds you is the one in the guide for the journal in front of you. Read it before you assume your last submission's format still applies.

Why do footnotes feel natural in the first place?

Because the footnote is a humanities instrument, and science journal templates were built on a different citation model. In history, law, and literary studies the footnote carries the argument, the citation, and the aside all at once.

Science journals took the citations out of the note and put them in a numbered reference list. PLOS ONE uses Vancouver style, with references numbered in the order they appear in the text. Once the citation has a home in that list, the note itself loses its main job. A writer trained across disciplines still reaches for the footnote by reflex, drops in a definition or a caveat, and the science template has nowhere to render it. The fix is not to argue with the rule. It is to sort the notes.

Where does each kind of footnote content belong?

Each common footnote maps to a section the manuscript already has. Sort by what the note contains, then send it to its home.

| What the note contains | Where it goes | |---|---| | A bibliographic citation | The reference list, numbered by order of appearance | | A definition or clarifying aside | The main text, worked into the sentence | | A "reproduced with permission" note | The figure or table legend it refers to | | A thank-you to a non-author | The Acknowledgments section | | A funding remark | The funding or financial disclosure statement | | An equal-contribution note | The author byline, using the journal's symbol |

The funding row catches people out. A common footnote reads "This work was supported by grant number X," and the instinct is to slide it into the Acknowledgments. PLOS ONE forbids that: keep funding sources out of the Acknowledgments and disclose them only in the financial disclosure section of the submission system. So a funding note is not just moved off the page. It leaves the manuscript file and goes into a submission form.

Where does a note about equal author contribution go?

Into the author list, using the journal's designated symbol, never a footnote you invent. PLOS ONE has a fixed scheme for this.

Its formatting sample marks the first set of equally contributing authors with a pilcrow (¶) and a second set with an ampersand (&), placed as superscripts in the byline. A short line under the author list then reads "These authors contributed equally to this work." The corresponding author takes an asterisk. If you want the wording to differ, for instance to name two people as joint senior authors, PLOS asks you to say so in that same block rather than in a note of your own. The same discipline applies to how you handle the author list and the et al. cutoff: the byline has its own rules, and they leave no reason to reach for a footnote.

Are table footnotes also banned?

No. Table notes are a separate mechanism, and they usually stay legal. The prohibition targets footnotes tied to the running text, not the explanatory notes that live with a specific table.

PLOS ONE asks authors to place legends, footnotes, and other text below each table, and it lets you express meaning with symbols that a footnote then explains. So a superscript letter in a cell, paired with a line under the table that says what the letter means, is fine. That note travels with the table wherever the table sits in the file. Keep table notes doing table work: units, sample sizes, the definition of an abbreviation used only in that grid. Anything that belongs to the argument as a whole moves up into the main text.

How do you sweep a draft for stray footnotes before submitting?

Turn on your editor's note view, empty every footnote into its correct home, then delete the footnote layer so none survive. Two minutes of routing beats a correction request two weeks later.

In Word, open the References tab and click Show Notes to see them collected in one place. In LaTeX, search the source for \footnote. Take them one at a time and route each by content: citation to the reference list, definition into the sentence, thanks to the Acknowledgments, funding to the disclosure form. Then confirm the count is zero, because a single note left behind is exactly the kind of slip a technical screen catches. Formatting problems also tend to travel with the substantive issues that get a paper desk rejected, so a clean sweep removes one more reason for an editor to stop reading early. A review that reads the draft against the target journal's own rule set, the way Waraq works, will flag a prohibited footnote and name where the text should go, which is the same call you would make by hand with the guide open beside you.