Humanities › English What Is an Annotation in Reading, Research, and Linguistics? Print Deux / Getty Images English English Grammar An Introduction to Punctuation Writing By Richard Nordquist Richard Nordquist English and Rhetoric Professor Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester B.A., English, State University of New York Dr. Richard Nordquist is professor emeritus of rhetoric and English at Georgia Southern University and the author of several university-level grammar and composition textbooks. Learn about our Editorial Process Updated on August 01, 2019 An annotation is a note, comment, or concise statement of the key ideas in a text or a portion of a text and is commonly used in reading instruction and in research. In corpus linguistics, an annotation is a coded note or comment that identifies specific linguistic features of a word or sentence. One of the most common uses of annotations is in essay composition, wherein a student might annotate a larger work he or she is referencing, pulling and compiling a list of quotes to form an argument. Long-form essays and term papers, as a result, often come with an annotated bibliography, which includes a list of references as well as brief summaries of the sources. There are many ways to annotate a given text, identifying key components of the material by underlining, writing in the margins, listing cause-effect relationships, and noting confusing ideas with question marks beside the statement in the text. Read More Definition and Examples of Explication (Analysis) By Richard Nordquist Identifying Key Components of a Text When conducting research, the process of annotation is almost essential to retaining the knowledge necessary to understand a text's key points and features and can be achieved through a number of means. Jodi Patrick Holschuh and Lori Price Aultman describe a student's goal for annotating text in "Comprehension Development," wherein the students "are responsible for pulling out not only the main points of the text but also the other key information (e.g., examples and details) that they will need to rehearse for exams." Holschuh and Aultman go on to describe the many ways a student may isolate key information from a given text, including writing brief summaries in the student's own words, listing out characteristics and cause-and-effect relations in the text, putting key information in graphics and charts, marking possible test questions, and underlining keywords or phrases or putting a question mark next to confusing concepts. REAP: A Whole-Language Strategy According to Eanet & Manzo's 1976 "Read-Encode-Annotate-Ponder" strategy for teaching students language and reading comprehension, annotation is a vital part of a students' ability to understand any given text comprehensively. The process involves the following four steps: Read to discern the intent of the text or the writer's message; Encode the message into a form of self-expression, or write it out in student's own words; Analyze by writing this concept in a note; and Ponder or reflect on the note, either through introspection or discussing with peers. Anthony V. Manzo and Ula Casale Manzo describe the notion in "Content Area Reading: A Heuristic Approach" as among the earliest strategies developed to stress the use of writing as a means of improving thinking and reading," wherein these annotations "serve as alternative perspectives from which to consider and evaluate information and ideas." Cite this Article Format mla apa chicago Your Citation Nordquist, Richard. "What Is an Annotation in Reading, Research, and Linguistics?" ThoughtCo, Aug. 27, 2020, thoughtco.com/what-is-annotation-1688988. Nordquist, Richard. (2020, August 27). What Is an Annotation in Reading, Research, and Linguistics? Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-annotation-1688988 Nordquist, Richard. "What Is an Annotation in Reading, Research, and Linguistics?" ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-annotation-1688988 (accessed April 24, 2024). copy citation