Episode 149: How Beautiful Are The Feet? Discovering the Power of Footnotes (Scott L. Howell & Lauryn Wilde)

As General Conference approaches, this episode of Y Religion highlights an inspiring way to enrich your conference experience. Assistant teaching professor Scott L. Howell and project manager of BYU Research Technology Group Lauryn Wilde discuss their research on thousands of general conference footnotes, revealing how these often-overlooked references contain additional doctrinal insights, personal experiences, historical context, and prophetic counsel. Their findings invite listeners to engage more deeply with conference messages and discover how studying beyond the spoken word can strengthen testimony and deepen gospel understanding.

 Publications:

• "'How Beautiful Are the Feet': The Use of Footnotes in General Conference Reports," with Scott L. Howell, Jesse Vincent, and Lauryn Wilde, Religious Educator, 24.2, Religious Studies Center (2023)
• "The Untold Story of Mission Plaques: Fifty Years of Selected Scriptures," with Scott L. Howell, Maclane E. Heward, Gregory L. Snow, Annalyn Sorensen, and Emmalia Cieslewicz, BYU Studies, 65.2, BYU Studies (2026)
• "'Knocking on People's Computers': Missionary Work in the Digital Age," with Scott L. Howell, Liberty Howell, and Camellia Hill, Religious Educator, 23.4, Religious Studies Center (2022)
• "Intentional Function and Frequency of Reporting Verbs Across Six Disciplines: A Cluster Analysis," with Jacob D. Rawlins, Grant Eckstein, Elizabeth Hanks, Emily W. Lester, Lauryn Wilde, and Ryan Bartholomew, International Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 4.1, Liverpool University Press (2024)
• "Introducing TrackEDT: A Tool to Accelerate Empirical Editing Research," with Jordan Smith, Matthew J. Baker, Lauryn Wilde, and Scout McMillan, IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 68.4, IEEE (2025)

Click here to learn more about Scott Howell

Click here to learn more about Lauryn Wilde