Footnotes are a great way to cite external sources in your writing. I like, in particular, how computational designer Nono Martínez Alonso implements footnotes on his website. Out of curiosity I started digging around to find a way to do the same thing. Sure enough, it turns out markdown has support for footnotes. If it’s your first time hearing about markdown, please check out this article, which I wrote as a primer to markdown with a deep dive into the syntax.

The syntax is pretty easy. You’ll need to define a superscript number(e.g [^2]) and a footnote reference somewhere at the bottom of your post.(e.g [^2]: this is a reference.). The superscript number points to the footnote reference as you would expect it to in a rich text editor.

Example

In the 2011 Guy Ritchie film 'Sherlock Homes: A Game of Shadows', 
I enjoyed the scene in which Moriarty, in conversation with Holmes, 
says: "the laws of celestial mechanics dictate that when two objects 
collide, there is always damage of a collateral nature."[^2]. 

# footnote reference
[^2]: Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows(2011). Dir, Guy Ritchie. 
Link to quote: [https://www.quotes.net/mquote/127972](https://www.quotes.net/mquote/127972)

Output

In the 2011 Guy Ritchie film ‘Sherlock Homes: A Game of Shadows’, I enjoyed the scene in which Moriarty, in conversation with Holmes, says: “the laws of celestial mechanics dictate that when two objects collide, there is always damage of a collateral nature.”¹.