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Annotation Project
Guidelines |
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Writing annotations asks you to direct your attention, not to
your own needs and values, but to the needs of another reader--one who will
come after you and need your help in understanding the text. For much of the history of reading,
the focus of annotation has been communal--to share information with other
readers. In this assignment,
youšll work in groups on annotating a poem of your choice, taken from the
ECCO database. (You may not choose a poem that is already included
in our course anthology.) Early in the semester I'll be dividing the class into groups of
four or five. After I've given
you a brief in-class tutorial on its usage, each group will search the ECCO
database for one poem, or a section of a poem, to work with. This poem or excerpt must be at
least 300 lines long – and you must submit it for my approval one month
before the annotation assignment is due. You
and the other members of your group will then take on the role of annotators,
choosing from the text those places where a reader would likely need a little
help in understanding it. After
researching those items, you will provide clear and detailed explanations
that would help a reader better understand both that specific point and, as a
result, the text as a whole. What you'll
be doing: Choose 20 to 25 items to annotate from the poem or excerpt your
group has chosen to work on.
These cannot all be definitions of words: at least ten of those annotations must include longer
explanations of historical or literary allusions or references, or
person/place names and significances. To help you imagine the kinds of things that a reader might need
to have explained (or annotated), look at the following example, from Aphra Behn's "The Disappointment": "Like Lightning through the Grove
she hies, Or Daphne from the Delphick God ; No Print upon the Grassie Road She leaves, t' instruct pursuing Eyes. The Wind that wanton'd in her Hair , And with her ruffled Garments plaid, Discover'd in the flying Maid All that the Gods e're made of Fair . So Venus, when her Love was Slain, With fear and haste flew o're the fatal
Plain." Several items that need further explanation appear quickly:
First define all the words your reader might need to know: use
an authoritative dictionary like the Oxford English Dictionary. For the others, ask who is it? what is the story behind this
allusion? why is it significant that the łflying Maid˛ is compared to this figure? what is
the relationship of this story to hers? Our course text, Eighteenth-Century Poetry: An Annotated Anthology, is also full of examples (as youšd
guess from its title) of the kinds of annotations editors and scholars use in
making texts more accessible to their readers. How you'll
be doing it: Now that you can imagine the kinds of things one could usefully
annotate, look at your section of the text. What items here would your classmates need defined,
explained, illuminated?
Remember, the purpose of annotation is not to interpret the text for
your reader, but to provide information that the reader can use to interpret. There are several different
categories of information that you can choose to provide when you annotate: historical: provides information about historical figures, events,
places mentioned in the text; defines words that might be unfamiliar or
that have changed their meanings; aesthetic: provides information about "artistic
forms," how contemporary
readers defined a particular genre or idea (like "the
beautiful"), where the
author uses (or adapts) those expectations, etc. authorial: provides information about when, where, why, how the author
created the text; this can include biographical information sociological/cultural: provides information about the
cultural context of the
text, its readers, its publication, its allusions, etc. Using
Resources Now that you have a list of 20-25 items to define, explain, or
illuminate, start by grouping your annotations by type: persons, places, book
titles, idea/concepts, events, etc.
Then research groups by type, using the same reference tools for each,
but saving time, by using one reference work at a time. For words, start with the Oxford English Dictionary. There you will find words defined
according to the time period they fall in. Make sure that the definitions you
choose fit the time period of your text. For persons, use a research encyclopedia--like the Encyclopedia
Britannica (which we
have online), but you might need to consult the 1911 version, which has more
figures from the nineteenth-century and earlier. The Dictionary of National Biography (DNB) is also a good resource for
persons. For questions of art and artists, look at the Grove
Dictionary of Art Online
or the Dictionary of Music Online.
You may not use Wikipedia as a source for this assignment. Verifying
Data and Filling in Details Once you have found out the general area for your research, you
can then move to more specialized tools, to verify and fill out your
information. Never trust just one source (unless you are defining words with
the OED). You might find out further information about authors with the
Dictionary of Literary Biography (which we own in cloth and online). If you need to find information on particular authors or what a
particular author wrote, consult Worldcat which provides the holdings of U.S.
and British libraries. The ECCO database can also help you track down the works of
eighteenth-century writers.
Other useful databases owned by the TTU library would be ABELL and
LION. An
example of verification/clarification: Suppose that the text that you are researching includes on page
57 the phrase "seraphic locks" to describe the hair of the main
character. The OED tells us that "seraphic" can mean the
following: "of or pertaining to the seraphim," then "concerned
with sublime objects," then "resembling a seraph, either in beauty
or in fervour of exalted devotion" and finally "of discourse,
actions, appearance: showing ecstasy of devout contemplation." You check out the dates and find that all those are appropriate
for the time period of your text. So, you move next to "seraphim" (keeping in mind you
might need to look at the definition of sublime as well). Now of course a careful researcher would not trust only one
authoritative source, but would see if another source offers additional,
supporting, or contradictory information. Since you need more information than the OED is offering, you
decide to use the Encyclopeadia Britannica; here's a direct quotation from the
article, "seraph." "plural Seraphim in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic
literature, celestial being variously described as having two or three pairs
of wings and serving as a throne guardian of God. Often called the burning
ones, seraphim in the Old Testament appear in the Temple vision of the
prophet Isaiah as six-winged creatures praising God in what is known in the
Greek Orthodox church as the Trisagion ("Thrice Holy"): "Holy,
holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory"
(Isaiah 6:3). In Christian angelology the seraphim are the highest-ranking
celestial beings in the hierarchy of angels. In art the four-winged cherubim
are painted blue (symbolizing the sky) and the six-winged seraphim red
(symbolizing fire). So, we know this item falls in the field of religious studies.
Therefore, we would check another source in that field--perhaps a dictionary of
religious terms or a book about angelology. To find such specialized research resources, check in with
one of the reference librarians, who will be delighted to provide you with
leads and information. For the purposes of this example, we'll write our annotation
from the two sources we have consulted. Logistics Remember that this is a group project; everyone in the group will receive
the same grade, so you'll have to come up with a way to work, successfully,
together. How you choose to
divvy up the responsibilities for the project are up to you – you might
want to assign different types of annotations to different people (word
definitions vs. literary allusions vs. historical personages, for example);
you may want to appoint one member of your group as editor-in-chief for
the project, responsible for ensuring all citations are correct and the final
product is as polished as it can be before turning it in to me. However you choose to navigate this
tricky process, my advice would be to choose a text and get started earlier
rather than later in the semester.
Writing and
Citing Annotations Provide the page or line number, follow it by a lemma (a short
phrase indicating to the reader what is being annotated) then by an open
bracket and finally by the annotation.
Our anthology does not use lemmas, youšll notice – but I prefer
you do so. Here would be an example of a finished annotation: 57 "seraphic locks"] In several religious traditions,
seraphs form part of the angelic host which surround the throne of God. In
most descriptions they are presented as fiery creatures with multiple wings.
Disraeli's comparison seems to allude only to the angelic nature of the
seraphim, not their physical appearance. "Seraph." Encyclopaedia Britannica. 2003. Encyclopaedia
Britannica Online. 22 Oct, 2003. http://search.eb.com/eb/article?eu=68541. Follow the annotation with a bibliographic entry citing the
source that provided the information.
Use MLA format for your citation. Formatting
Annotations and the overall assignment First provide me with a cover sheet in which you list the names
of your group members, the title, author, and year of publication of the poem
or excerpt youšve chosen to annotate.
If this is a second or third or fourth (etc.) edition of the poem,
provide that information too. Then provide a printed copy of the poem or excerpt (you can do
this directly from ECCO if you like; the database has print and print
formatting options; or you can type it out and print it) your group has
chosen to annotate. Finally provide your group's annotations, which should be
arranged in the order they appear in the text, indicated as above--much as
you have seen endnotes in novels.
Remember to put any quoted words or phrases from the source in
quotation marks and provide a parenthetical citation for any sources you get
information from. Grading and
Evaluation Your
annotations will be evaluated according to the following criteria:
Keep in mind that your goal is to provide useful information for
a reader. Therefore, you
could understand these criteria as answers to the following questions:
In general,
these criteria translate into the following letter grades: A. Thorough, detailed, appropriate, and clear explanations of
items. Annotations reveal the importance of the item and by extension carry
importance for the text overall. B. Annotations may fulfill the criteria, but are lacking in one
of the five areas. C. Annotations may fulfill 3, or more, of the criteria, but
typically fail to satisfy the reader's need for clarification or explanation. D. Annotations do not show a clear understanding of the needs of
the reader. F. Annotations fail to address the needs of the reader,
annotations do not indicate sources, annotations do not fully paraphrase
source materials, or some other failure in fulfilling the assignment as
described. The
Presentation During the week after your annotation assignments are due, you
and your group will present your annotation project to the class in the
following way:
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