text annotation

. Text annotation is the practice and the result of adding a note or gloss to a text, which may include highlights or underlining, comments, footnotes, tags, and links. Text annotations can include notes written for a reader's private purposes, as well as shared annotations written for the purposes of collaborative writing and editing, commentary, or social reading and sharing. In some fields, text annotation is comparable to metadata insofar as it is added post hoc and provides information about a text without fundamentally altering that original text. Text annotations are sometimes referred to as marginalia, though some reserve this term specifically for hand-written notes made in the margins of books or manuscripts. Annotations have been found to be useful and help to develop knowledge of English literature. Annotations can be both private and socially shared, including hand-written and information technology-based annotation. Annotations are different than notetaking because annotations must be physically written or added on the actual original piece. This can be writing within the page of a book or highlighting a line, or, if the piece is digital, a comment or saved highlight or underline within the document. For information on annotation of Web content, including images and other non-textual content, see also Web annotation.

. Text annotation is the practice and the result of adding a note or gloss to a text, which may include highlights or underlining, comments, footnotes, tags, and links. Text annotations can include notes written for a reader's private purposes, as well as shared annotations written for the purposes of collaborative writing and editing, commentary, or social reading and sharing. In some fields, text annotation is comparable to metadata insofar as it is added post hoc and provides information about a text without fundamentally altering that original text. Text annotations are sometimes referred to as marginalia, though some reserve this term specifically for hand-written notes made in the margins of books or manuscripts. Annotations have been found to be useful and help to develop knowledge of English literature. Annotations can be both private and socially shared, including hand-written and information technology-based annotation. Annotations are different than notetaking because annotations must be physically written or added on the actual original piece. This can be writing within the page of a book or highlighting a line, or, if the piece is digital, a comment or saved highlight or underline within the document. For information on annotation of Web content, including images and other non-textual content, see also Web annotation.

Annotation structure

The structural components of any annotation can be roughly divided into three primary elements: a body, an anchor, and a marker. The body of an annotation includes reader-generated symbols and text, such as handwritten commentary or stars in the margin. The anchor is what indicates the extent of the original text to which the body of the annotation refers; it may include circles around sections, brackets, highlights, underlines, and so on. Annotations may be anchored to very broad stretches of text (such as an entire document) or very narrow sections (such as a specific letter, word, or phrase). The marker is the visual appearance of the anchor, such as whether it is a grey underline or a yellow highlight. An annotation that has a body (such as a comment in the margin) but no specific anchor has no marker.

Annotation display types

IT-based annotation systems utilize a variety of display options for annotations, including: Footnote interfaces that display annotations below the corresponding text Aligned annotations that display comments and notes vertically in the text margins, sometimes in multiple columns or as a "sidebar" layer Interlinear annotations that attach annotations directly into a text Sticky note interfaces, where annotations appear in popup dialogs over the source text Voice annotations, in which reviewers record annotations and embed them within a document Pen or digital-ink based interfaces that allow writing directly on a document or screen Annotation interfaces may also allow highlighting or underlining, as well as threaded discussions. Sharing and communicating through annotations anchored to specific documents is sometimes referred to as anchored discussion.

Text derived from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1374888859 under CC BY-SA 4.0; modifications have been made.