Blog 3 – Annotation Studio & Voyant Update
I have found Annotation Studio to be an extremely helpful tool in my reading process. I usually have a difficult time close-reading and, therefore, really taking a deep dive to understand and evaluate the text as well as the characters in the text; however, using Annotation Studio made it easier for me to pay more attention to what I am reading. Something about being able to easily and neatly mark down my thoughts makes it not only easier to track my thought process throughout the novel, but also makes it easier for me to go back and find theories I have come up with through the “tags” feature. While it is just as easy to do this through simply putting post-it notes in a physical book, the digital setting of the text and annotations makes it a bit easier for me to navigate. Not only that, but it peaks my interest more.
In tinkering around with Annotation Studio to examine the annotations of my classmates, I found both some conveniences and troubles with the program. Firstly, I found it incredibly helpful and useful to have access to other’s annotations of the novel, as this gave me an opportunity to compare the quantity and quality of my annotations to other people reading the novel at the same time as me. It is also useful to be able to read through other’s thoughts, as they might (and most likely did) annotate different parts of the novel than me, sparking certain thoughts and aspects about the story line, characters, setting, and so on in which I did not think about earlier. This, in turn, gives me a better understanding and multiple perspectives on what I am reading. Moreover, it in a way brings the classroom discussions home with me, which I find helpful. What I found to be difficult about the program, however, was navigating other’s annotations, I found the setup of the webpage with a list of annotations to be hard to navigate and, really, to look at. If it was organized by category more, it would be easier to navigate; however, it is still an extremely informative resource to make use of regardless.
Since I have started reading Herland, I have certainly gotten a better understanding of the story line, as opposed to Voyant’s given analysis. While Voyant was a helpful tool to foreshadow connections and predict outcomes before reading the book, it did not give the full story line, nor did it give the tone of the novel. From Voyant, I was for some reason expecting a more dramatic tone; however, through Chapter 9 at least, the tone is rather informative and relaxed. Voyant was still helpful, though, as it helped me to look out more for the most commonly brought up topics and/or words (such as Terry and women). I am being more alert of Terry’s actions, as I know his presence suddenly drops at the end of the novel. Moreover, I am more aware of the presence of the civilization’s self-reproduction, which I am constantly questioning as a climax has yet to come.
4 Comments
laujack
I agree with you about the positive and negative aspects of annotation studio. I also found others’ perspectives to be helpful in my own reading experience. However, when scrolling my mouse over each annotation I think it would have been helpful for each person’s comments to have a specific color. Otherwise I have to look at the name. It wasn’t until the end that I noticed the section for tags and realized I did not tag any of my comments. As I am reading through others’ opinions on the tags it seems that they didn’t really help much. Maybe if there was a list of tags used throughout the annotations so you could just choose a tag and read all of the comments under that tag? The open-ended search bar makes it more complicated for our use. Perhaps it is more helpful with a larger group making citations over a complete text.
kcookso
I very much agree that annotation studios at times felt almost unorganized. It was hard to decipher whose annotations were who’s. I also felt like it was just a lot shoved into a small area. But it was nice to read everyone’s comments and perspectives on the chapters it added many things that I had never thought about!
wschmid
It’s nice to know that I am not the only person that has difficulty close-reading. Like you, I found Annotation Studio to be a great benefit in learning how others read a text. With continued use, this will help me refine my methods for close-reading of books. With an improved tagging system, I think Annotation Studio would be a good resource for any English major.
I’m not giving up on Voyant just yet. I’ll continue using it when it’s beneficial. I know I have more to learn about it and how it can be used. It’s good for seeing how much importance a character has throughout the book.
gaellis
I agree that is extremely helpful to be able to jot down your thoughts in the text while going through and reading. This way you have notes to go back to in case you forget an opinion or idea you had about a specific section of the text. I agree that it’s insightful to be able to see annotations others made. Someone else may annotate a section that you hadn’t thought much about or given a second to. On further inspection, you may find that the section they annotated plays a key role in the text. I also found that while Voyant gave somewhat of an outline, reading the actual text gave it more tone and an actual story plot.