ACTIVITY 9.18
Writing Critical Annotations

To this point you have gathered a number of E-texts related to a topic of your choice. You have read them closely and taken extensive notes while evaluating the documents. Now you can use those notes to write a critical annotation of the E-text. If and how well you write the critical annotation depends much on what you will eventually do with the annotation. If you are doing this project for your own benefit only, the notes you have taken already may suffice. Notes, nonetheless, tend to be scattered and disconnected, and the process of writing the critical annotation will help you make sense of what you have read. It will also provide you with a central source to work with if and when you return to the E-text as you write your essays. You will find that the the more E-texts you read as potential sources for your essays, the more difficult it will be to keep them all straight in your mind. Writing the critical annotation will serve you well, even if it is for your eyes only. The critical annotation could serve other audiences, too, and if it will be read by others, then you will have to consider the needs of those readers, too.

Minimally, your teacher may want you to submit a series of critical annotations with the essays in which you use the sources. Sharing the critical annotations with other members of your learning community can help them with their research and critical reading, too. We'll talk more about that process in Activity 9.19. In any case, your goal is to write an approximately 500-word (or whatever length your community and your teacher deem appropriate) critical annotation. Regardless of the length, you need to give your readers enough information to know what the E-text is about and enough analysis and evaluation to help your readers consider whether they too want to read the original E-text.

Step 1: Rereading Your Notes

Reread your notes on the E-text. If anything else about the E-text, the topic, or your feelings toward the issue occurs to you, add those thoughts to your notes. Even if you have taken your notes on a word processor, you might want to start a new file to write the critical annotation itself.

Step 2: Getting the Bibliographical Information Straight

The purpose the bibliographical information is to give those who might read your work a lead to the original source you are using. It's important, therefore, for you to have it down correctly on your critical annotation.

Consult your teacher as to which discipline-specific style you are to use. The humanities often use Modern Language Association style or Chicago style, whereas the social sciences often use the American Psychological Association style. You can learn more about these styles generally and the specifics of documenting E-texts at these addresses:

http://www.cas.usf.edu/english/walker/mla.html

http://www.uark.edu/depts/comminfo/www/study.html

Type out the bibliographical information at the top of your document.

Step 3: Writing about the E-Text

In seventy-five words or so, respond to the following:

Where did the E-text appear, and how would one find it?

What genre is the E-text? Is it argumentative, narrative, expository?

What is the general subject?

Step 4: Summarizing the E-Text

In 150 words or so, summarize the E-text by addressing the following:

What is the purpose of the E-text-to persuade, argue, analyze, inform?

What is the thesis or controlling idea of the e-text?

Summarize the line of development. What is point A, point B, and so forth?

What kinds of evidence, examples, and so on, does the author use?

Step 5: Evaluating the E-Text

In about 150 words evaluate the e-text by addressing the following:

What are the strengths of the E-text? Informative? Appropriate language, content, and structure for the implied audience and purpose? Well developed with concrete, valid, and reliable support? Well written?

What are the drawbacks of the E-text? Does it do anything so poorly as to undermine your faith in its validity and reliability? Do you notice any underlying biases based on the writer's tone, the kinds of evidence used, the implied point of view of the site where you found the E-text? Do you suspect any flaws in the writer's thinking based on evidence of poor reasoning or poor writing?

Step 6: Putting It All into Perspective

Depending on your audience and purpose for writing the critical annotation, you might want to handle this part differently. What you include in this section might vary if you're writing it for yourself or for an audience of your peers.

How did reading the E-text affect your knowledge, beliefs, or point of view on the topic?

What parts might you use in your own thinking and writing about the topic?

How does this E-text compare with other texts, digital or print, you've read on the same topic?

Would you recommend this E-text to others conducting research on a similar topic? Why?

Step 7: Polishing the Critical Annotation

This step is less important if you will not be sharing your critical annotation with others. But if you intend to share the critical annotations with your teacher or peers, don't forget to do the following:

Read your draft aloud. Listen for long rambling clauses, phrases, and sentences and short, choppy constructions.

Does your annotation read like an essay or series of short answers to questions? If you are going to share the annotation with others, it needs to read like an essay. If you merely answered the items in the preceding steps, your critical annotation may not make sense to a reader who may not know what the questions were. If that is the case, you'll probably have to go back and create transitions between ideas and paragraphs that will help make the document more reader friendly.

Proofread the critical annotation for grammar, usage, and punctuation.

Spellcheck the document for typos, misspellings, and repeated words.