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I teach secondary history classes. My principal is pushing for all teachers to introduce students to a annotation system which should be the same in all classes. But the system doesn't seem appropriate for my student's needs, e.g. here are some of the 20+ items:

  • Underline key words.
  • Put a question mark next to questions you have.
  • Put a star next to important items.
  • Put an exclamation mark next to things you felt were interesting.
  • Write the infinity symbol next to a "connection" you made.
  • Etc.

The items don't help students to focus on achieving their goal at hand. The annotations might help students to closely read a text, but don't product meaningful notes that students can refer to for other purposes.

My students need to use annotations in two contexts, which I think also resemble the reason-for-annotating text in college:

  • To annotate a text, identifying items relevant to a given prompt, in preparation for writing a short essay.
  • To annotate a text, identifying items relevant to their own thesis statement (or possibly requiring them to reevaluate their thesis statement), for a research project.

I tried arguing for a simpler system that addressed these needs, but my suggestion was dropped, because the principal was using a method from a "credible" source, one downloaded from Pinterest. My principal might be swayed if I presented some "standard" method used in academia (i.e. something with a name).

Just as there is formal "Cornell Notes", which was even created by a Cornell professor, is there a named, standard system for annotating in academia?

Village
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    If there is, I'd be amazed to see anyone actually using it. The best annotation system is the one that works for you, or for each individual student. For instance, I've never annotated anything and relied just on memory. – Massimo Ortolano Jul 07 '19 at 18:37
  • I don't know of a named "standard" nor even of a named technique, but a little poking with https://scholar.google.com found this: https://tidsskrift.dk/daimipb/article/download/6546/5665/ which contains a taxonomy of techniques. Perhaps some more poking would find something hopeful. – Bob Brown Jul 07 '19 at 18:54
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    Alternatively, perhaps one of us could post something on that singularly authoritative source, Pinterest. – Bob Brown Jul 07 '19 at 18:55
  • I suggest that you contact this woman and see whether she's published anything herself or knows of something suitable: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meg-keeley-94711018/ – Bob Brown Jul 07 '19 at 19:24
  • I make my notes about their work on a custom excel spreadsheet - common phrases I use have shortcuts so I don't have to type much (simply because I can't type...) The sheet is individual per student and I print it and give them a copy as feedback... works for me. – Solar Mike Jul 07 '19 at 19:35
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    Obligatory: https://xkcd.com/927/ – JeffE Jul 07 '19 at 20:35

2 Answers2

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It's hard to prove a negative, but my experience is that there is no standard system of annotating text.

Federico Poloni
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The answer to "do Academics have a standardized system for X" is invariably No. At best there will be multiple competing standards.

Joey Eremondi
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  • If there is one competing standard, all I need is one. I don't need one everybody is using, just one promoted by an academic. – Village Jul 09 '19 at 13:54