Annotating While Reading Sources

Why do we need to annotate? Think of annotation as a way of personalizing a text to your reading style. You get to engage with it by underlining parts that you like and think are important, or circling words and adding a question mark as a note to yourself to look into the definition and meaning of this word. You get to write in the margin of the text and apply your own understanding, questions, or add an argument or response to what you’re reading. Regardless of what career or profession you intend on pursuing, being able to take in information and break it down in a way that you will be able to engage with it is a vital skill to have.

In this section, we will first look at what annotation is and why it works. We get to look at a few examples to note how others may have used annotation but more importantly, you get to practice annotation on your own. Practice will help you to figure out your own annotation style and see what works for you. Once you understand its purpose and see how beneficial annotation can be, you will be able to (and want to) annotate texts from any discipline or field of interest.

What is annotation and why does it work? The act of annotating a text is truly for personal benefit, and here’s why:

• Annotating a text often involves highlighting or underlining unfamiliar words or phrases and defining them
• Summarizing an important point in your own words to check for understanding
• Writing any questions or comments either in the margin or separately but keeping a reference point for the question or comment (called marginal writing or marginal commentary)

There are other methods of annotation, and the more you read the more you will develop your own style of annotating. Most annotations do the following:

1. Identify the BIG IDEA
2. Underline topic sentences or main ideas
3. Connect ideas with arrows
4. Ask questions
5. Add personal notes
6. Define technical words

Like many skills, annotating takes practice. Remember that the main goal for doing this is to give you a strategy for reading text that may be more complicated and technical than what you are used to. You can find more help here.  

What Notes to Make

1. Scan the document you are annotating. Some obvious clues will be apparent before you read it, such as titles or headers for sections. Read the first paragraph. Somewhere in the first (or possibly the second) paragraph should be a BIG IDEA about what the article is going to be about. In the margins, near the top, write down the big idea of the article in your own words. This shouldn’t be more than a phrase or a sentence. This big idea is likely the article’s thesis.
2. Underline topic sentences or phrases that express the main idea for that paragraph or section. You should never underline more than 5 words, though for large paragraphs or blocks of text, you can use brackets. (Underlining long stretches gets messy, and makes it hard to review the text later.) Write in the margin next to what you’ve underlined a summary of the paragraph or the idea being expressed.
3. Connect related ideas by drawing arrows from one idea to another. Annotate those arrows with a phrase about how they are connected.
4. If you encounter an idea, word, or phrase you don’t understand, circle it and put a question mark in the margin that indicates an area of confusion. Write your question in the margin.
5. Anytime the author makes a statement that you can connect with on a personal level, annotate in the margins a summary of how this connects to you. Write any comments or observations you feel appropriate to the text. You can also add your personal opinion.
6. Place a box around any term or phrase that emphasizes scientific language. These could be words you are not familiar with or will need to review later. Define those words in the margins.

Referencing Sources

Integrating evidence, perspectives, insights, and information from other sources is a vital step to composing effective essays, presentations, and productions. How smoothly you integrate evidence impacts your credibility as a researcher and writer. There are three primary ways to integrate evidence: quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing. For all of these, particularly quoting, there is a “formula” to follow: 1) introduce, 2) insert, and 3) explain. The introduce step entails preparing the reader for the new information that’s to come. You can do this by mentioning the source, author, or using signal phrases, such as “according to” or “statistics show that” before bringing in a quotation, paraphrase or summary. The insert step happens when you enter in a quotation, paraphrasing of a fact, or summarize a point made by another source. Lastly, the explain step is oftentimes the most important step to be taken. When explaining your evidence, you’ll demonstrate why the evidence or the source of the evidence is important and how it connects to your overall argument, specific claims, or other important information. By doing so, you’re providing in-depth insight and analysis that keeps your readers engaged and invested in what you have to say.

Quoting

Quoting is when one uses the exact wording of the source material. Direct quotations should be used sparingly, and should be used to strengthen your own arguments and ideas.

When should one use a quotation? Ideally, you want a balance of quotations, paraphrased or summarized content in your writing. Some reasons to use a quotation instead of paraphrasing or summarizing might include:

• When not using the author’s exact wording would change the original meaning
• To lend authority to the point you are trying to make
• When the language of the quote is significant

Quotations should always be introduced and incorporated into your argument, rather than dropped into your paper without context. Consider this first example of how not to incorporate a quotation:

There are many positive effects for advertising prescription drugs on television. “African-American physicians regard direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription medicines as one way to educate minority patients about needed treatment and healthcare options” (Wechsler).

This is a potentially good piece of information to support a research writer’s claim, but the researcher hasn’t done any of the necessary work to explain where this quotation comes from nor explain why it is important for supporting her point. Rather, she has simply “dropped in” the quotation, leaving the interpretation of its significance up to the reader. Now consider this revised example of how this quotation might be better introduced into the essay:

In her Pharmaceutical Executive article available through the Wilson Select Internet database, Jill Wechsler writes about one of the positive effects of advertising prescription drugs on television. “African-American physicians regard direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription medicines as one way to educate minority patients about needed treatment and healthcare options.”

In this revision, it’s much clearer what point the writer is trying to make with this evidence and where this evidence comes from.

Paraphrasing

While there are numerous skills you will develop as writers and communicators throughout your composition experience, one that builds the foundation to effective source usage and understanding is paraphrasing. Paraphrasing is a restatement of the information or point of the original source in your own words. You’ve probably heard of paraphrasing before and may have even attempted to paraphrase (or had trouble paraphrasing because it seemed as though no one could say it better than the author already did). However, you may not always have enough space or time to integrate a specific quotation, especially if it’s a lengthy one and covers multiple concepts or conveys complex details.

Further, we want to make sure, as effective writers, that we’re not distracting readers from our own perspectives or sources of information by including lengthy quotations from other sources. To put it another way, we don’t want to make our readers work for the point and information because they could lose interest or get lost and miss the important points we’re presenting to them by using the source(s). So, paraphrasing helps us avoid these mishaps and helps our organization and “flow” better.

Two Paraphrasing Tips:

If you’re trying to paraphrase but unsure as to where to begin, try:

1. a) explaining the author’s point to your peer who’s not familiar with that text or maybe even the concept being addressed there, or
2. b) writing down the specific thing(s) you want to emphasize from the other author’s point.

Summarizing

Summarizing is a skill similar to paraphrasing. However, it serves a different purpose, especially when writing. Summarizing usually comes into play when there are multiple steps or details to be conveyed. One of the ways summarizing differs from paraphrasing is in the language associated with them. Typically, you summarize a process, an event, or a story but you paraphrase a theory, concept, or claim. In the next paragraphs, author Stephen D. Krause offers us some helpful guidance on how to summarize and why it’s important.

Summaries of different lengths are useful in research writing because you often need to provide your readers with an explanation of the text you are discussing. This is especially true when you are going to quote or paraphrase from a source.

Of course, the first step in writing a good summary is to do a thorough reading of the text you are going to summarize in the first place. Beyond that important start, there are a few basic guidelines you should follow when you write summary material:

• Stay “neutral” in your summarizing.  Summaries provide “just the facts” and are not the place where you offer your opinions about the text you are summarizing. Save your opinions and evaluation of the evidence you are summarizing for other parts of your writing.
• Don’t quote from what you are summarizing.  Summaries will be more useful to you and your colleagues if you write them in your own words.
• Don’t “cut and paste” from database abstracts.  Many of the periodical indexes that are available as part of your library’s computer system include abstracts of articles. Do not “cut” this abstract material and then “paste” it into your own annotated bibliography. For one thing, this is plagiarism. Second, “cutting and pasting” from the abstract defeats one of the purposes of writing summaries and creating an annotated bibliography in the first place, which is to help you understand and explain your research.

A summary will need to:

• Accurately, effectively, and ethically identify and describe the subject or source.
• Identify and describe the key components and points.
• Define and explain key terms as needed.
• Present this information to readers in an efficient, accessible format.

Summaries provide bare-bones details—but always enough to communicate what the writer thinks is most important for the audience to know.  That is, summaries provide readers with the most important points from a subject or source. Significantly shorter than the source material, summaries condense key points, ideas, methods, terms, and so forth. As the Oxford English Dictionary explains, a summary is “a shortened statement or account which gives only the main or essential points of something, not the details; an abridgement.” The key words here are “shortened” and “only the main or essential points.”

Summaries are foundational. We often need to provide information quickly and efficiently. Writers use them in a variety of ways: to let readers know what something is all about, so they can decide whether to read further; to distill complex ideas into smaller, more digestible chunks; to introduce a subject or topic before going into more detail or deeper analysis; to briefly describe to readers a topic that they may be interested in; or to support an argument. These are just a few ways writers use summaries.

Summaries are everywhere. A photo caption in a news story, for example, is a kind of summary; it tells readers what the photo is about and what it has to do with the story. On a restaurant menu, brief descriptions are included so that customers know what to expect; these descriptions summarize the most important points about the dish. In academic writing, abstracts—usually a short paragraph located before the beginning of the essay itself—summarize key points so that fellow scholars can quickly identify what those key points are and how useful the essay might be to them. In a brochure for a new car, ad writers use summaries to highlight the features they think are most important to customers. These are just a few examples. Can you think of others?

Consider more closely what summaries do in different situations by comparing the following examples. These summaries describe a 2016 documentary by Ava DuVernay:

“[In 13th], Filmmaker Ava DuVernay explores the history of racial inequality in the United States, focusing on the fact that the nation’s prisons are disproportionately filled with African-Americans.” — Rotten Tomatoes website

“[DuVernay’s] documentary ‘13th’ is a powerful look at how the modern-day prison labor system links to slavery. The film, which premieres on Netflix and in select theaters Friday, offers a timely and emotional message framed by the upcoming election and the Black Lives Matter movement.” — Bethonie Butler, The Washington Post

“DuVernay’s acclaimed 2016 documentary, 13th … investigates the issue of mass incarceration in the United States in relation to the 13th Amendment, and the history of racism and of mistreating and criminalizing black folks, especially black men.” — Sara E. Juarez, Cinesthesia

Notice the key points that each summary focuses on. For example, each one names the source material and mentions key aspects of the film; those details cover the ethical requirements for summaries. You might also notice slight differences in how each of these summaries work. For example, the third example comes from a scholarly analysis of the film; it is the most detailed of the three. The first (and shortest) example comes from an online, Wikipedia-style source for movie reviews: Rotten Tomatoes. And the middle source comes from a review published by a national news outlet, The Washington Post; it most clearly offers an opinion about the source.  Which summary is most successful in terms of the genre it is used for?

The effectiveness of a summary is contingent on the purpose, context, and target audience for each genre. In The Washington Post review, for example, a key purpose is to summarize the film but not give away too much of the plot; notice how film critic B. Butler provides information for readers who might want to see the film. Juarez’s summary, on the other hand, aims for an academic audience; to fulfill the genre conventions of scholarly essays, she provides basic information about the film, from its connection with to 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution to its subject matter (“the issue of mass incineration in the United States”). Also, the second and third examples assume that audiences know what a “documentary” is, but this term is not defined.

Each example, in short, demonstrates what summaries do in different genres, for different purposes, and for different audiences. Notably, these film summaries are significantly different from a full synopsis, which would more fully describe sections and other components of 13th. To use a sports analysis, rather than giving you the detailed, play-by-play report, summaries say simply that Team X won the game by 10 points in overtime. Sometimes you need the short version, not a whole replay. To keep your readers engaged, your project manageable, and your points clear, you need a summary. Knowing how to write summaries is a foundational first step to take before moving on to analysis.

It’s important to learn how to create quotations, to paraphrase, and to summarize properly because we don’t want to plagiarize. But beyond our goal of not plagiarizing, we want to give proper attribution to those who’ve worked hard on their research and studies to share this information with the rest of the world. Learning to quote, paraphrase, and summarize properly will help you avoid plagiarism, especially accidental plagiarism, add more dynamism to your writing, and build your credibility and skills as an ethical writer and researcher.

Avoiding Plagiarism

Plagiarism is using someone else’s words and ideas as one’s own without giving credit or attribution to the source. When you get right down to it, plagiarism is theft. In some cases, a writer may plagiarize intentionally, while at other times, it may happen unintentionally. Here are some examples of how plagiarism can occur:

Plagiarism can be intentional:

• You use someone’s ideas or results without citing the source;
• You copy something word for word without using quotation marks, even though you cite the source;
• You use all or part of a visual without crediting the source; or
• You create a text entirely through the use of AI

Or it can be accidental:

• You don’t realize what is considered plagiarism in the United States;
• You can’t think of a better way to say it and so copy sentences, phrases, or even sentence structure from the original without using quotation marks;
• When you took notes, you didn’t put exact wording in quotation marks and now you plagiarize without realizing it.
• You might have engaged unknowingly in patchwriting.

It will always be necessary to use multiple sources in your writing, and with proper attribution, you won’t have to worry about plagiarism.  Let’s look at some of the ways you can avoid plagiarism while still using your excellent source material.

Detailed Note-taking

During the information gathering phase of your writing, keep extremely detailed notes.  Include citations for every source you use as you take notes, including the page number. And always remember, if you write something word-for-word from a source, always put this information in quotation marks.

Care-full Reading & Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing, which is putting source material into your own words, is a great way to incorporate information in your work. But, you must do this carefully and thoughtfully.  Instead of taking the words of another writer, rearranging them and changing a few words, take the time to really understand what you’re reading. Find the information you need, read it slowly, then close your source, write the idea you’re reading about in your own words, and include a citation. This not only helps you avoid plagiarism, it also helps you learn and cognitively process new data into knowledge. Although you may no longer need to use quotation marks around your statement, it does not mean you no longer need to cite the source. When in doubt, cite your source. Don’t ever worry about using too many citations.

Image Credit: “How to Defend Against Online Plagiarism” by harrisxiong is licensed with CC BY 2.0.

Attributions

“How to Annotate,” Lumen Learning, CC BY-NC: Attribution-NonCommercial, https://courses.lumenlearning.com/engcomp1-wmopen/chapter/text-how-to-annotate/.

“How to Annotate Text,” Biology Corner, CC BY-NC, https://biologycorner.com/worksheets/annotate.html.

“How to Summarize—An Overview,” authored, remixed, and/or curated by Steven D. Krause,  CC BY-NC-SA, https://human.libretexts.org/@go/page/6482.

“How to Quote and Paraphrase- An Overview,” authored, remixed, and/or curated by Steven D. Krause, CC BY-NC-SA, https://human.libretexts.org/@go/page/6483.