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In the following sentence, 'The graph can be found in the appendix [preposition] this report', what is the correct preposition to use? In particular, is 'to' more appropriate than 'of'?

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  • Methinks their meanings differ. Appendix to designates the document to which the appendix has been, well, appended. Appendix of designates the contents of the appendix itself.
    – Anonym
    Mar 29, 2015 at 19:41

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I wouldn't object to appendix for, appendix of, appendix behind, appendix following, and so on, but by the NGram, appendix to is favored by a wide margin:

Google Books NGram showing 'appendix to' being much more prevalent than 'appendix for' or 'appendix of'

There may be some false hits here as appendix can also refer to an internal organ, among other things, but since those uses would be overwhelmingly appendix of (e.g. The appendix of a ruminant, unlike the appendix of an ape, is a true appendix, or cecum), the point stands.

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  • Shoot, I just found the Ngram site! I was about to post the same but you beat me to it. I would also like to point out that the popularity of "appendix to" is rapidly declining, while "appendix of" is steadily increasing.
    – Mike
    Mar 29, 2015 at 15:25
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    For some reason, which I cannot figure out, most of the extra instances of "appendix to this" are part of "appendix to this chapter", and if you remove them then the frequencies of "to" and "of" are much closer. See Ngram.
    – Peter Shor
    Mar 29, 2015 at 15:37
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    Nice find @PeterShor! To be fair, of course, this should probably be the query.
    – Mike
    Mar 29, 2015 at 16:03
  • Hello! How about this direct query on the OP expression? To with dominance by a factor of 3 and much less obfuscation.
    – ScotM
    May 22, 2015 at 5:20
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Both "to" and "of" are appropriate, although I prefer "of". "To" has more of a detached sense, which may be more appropriate if it was in a separate book, PDF, etc. "Of" makes the appendix inherently feel more a part of the whole report.

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An appendix, or more appendices, is, or are, appended to the text. For this reason, appendix to surely sounds more natural.

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An appendix is something that has been appended to a document. Therefore, you would describe it as the appendix to the document.

The appendix does not belong to the document. Therefore describing it as the appendix of the document is incorrect.

An appendix is not part of the document. If it were, it would be a chapter or a section.

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    I would most definitely call the appendix to a book part of the book. It's usually not in a separate volume.
    – Peter Shor
    Mar 29, 2015 at 15:42

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