In reference to academic papers, what are backnotes?

Footnotes and endnotes are the two most common ways of citing
academic text. Some people also refer to endnotes as
"backnotes," although it is not a term commonly used. Essentially,
endnotes, or backnotes, are a means of identifying the sources of
the information you either quote or refer to in your academic
papers.

When using end/backnotes, each use of a source, either as a
quotation, paraphrase, or other reference, is numbered in consecutive order with an Arabic
numeral ( 1, 2, 3, 4, etc) that corresponds to the same Arabic number on a separate Endnotes, or
Backnotes, page that will be appended to your essay or other academic paper. In the backnote,
following the appropriate and consecutively ordered Arabic number, you will provide standard
citation information in whatever academic writing style your instructor prefers, be that MLA,
APA, or otherwise.

Standard citation information includes things
like author, title of book, title of article, editor of collection, Web site name, date of
retrieval from the Internet, date of publication etc. So, backnotes,
more commonly called endnotes, provide a consecutively numbered list providing all the
information required for identifying and crediting sources and corresponding to identically
numbered quotations, paraphrases, etc. drawn from sources used as support or explanation or
background etc. in your academic paper.

Your instructor may also
require other source identification like Works Cited or Bibliography to accompany the
end/backnotes page. In addition, instructors may request that end/backnotes also be annotated,
which means that you would comment upon the sources you have used, perhaps stating the strong or
weak points or the authors' unique qualifications, etc.