Footnotes are an integral part of academic writing, primarily because they are supposed to provide references to sources and previous scholarship. This is because academic research is seen as science, which is by definition evidence-based. This video is about what an ideal footnote in the humanities is, which is different from what it is in disciplines such as social sciences or natural sciences. I think in the humanities a footnotes have to be balanced in relation to the main text. They should provide context, reference evidence, but also make the paper more interesting by adding some relevant details. Also, footnotes make it easier for me to write because the stakes are much lower when I write something in a footnote. And as I keep adding information to it, eventually I can move the whole thing into the main text. Finally, I also see their use in being sacrificed at the very end of writing when the time has already run out yet there are still many missing page numbers. Deleting footnotes (the ones that are not essential) can save you quite a bit of time.

---Video's Table of Contents--
00:00 Intro
02:48 Different formats
03:33 The ideal footnote
05:38 The right balance
06:52 Helps writing
08:12 Finishing