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Hey, y'all. I love doing that. We've been discussing annotating texts and some methods and strategies, even kind of philosophies behind those actions and practices as part of critical reading in general. And we've, you know, we've covered a lot of ground. But we still have a few more things to talk about. And today, we'll talk about end annotations and annotations. These typically make some type of comments on the source as a whole, and can assume different forms, including summaries, responses and questions. So let me repeat that the overview of what an end annotation does, typically makes some type of comment on the source as a whole, and can assume different forms in doing so including summaries, responses and questions. Those would be the forms that it might take. So summaries would start with those. We've got, you know, three things there to talk about summaries, responses and questions. So summaries within in the annotations, they offer brief, objective overviews of a reading. Again, the summary and annotation will offer a brief objective overview of the reading. So you may want to write like one to two sentences summarizing the reading at the end of the reading, especially if you're reading several sources for your paper. Having these in brief chunks that are summative and their design allows you to quickly review large sets of source material. And that's very useful because the purpose of these summaries is essentially to jog your memory about the readings content or the thesis, you know what it's particularly aimed at accomplishing. So you don't have to reread the entire text. Of course, rereading is the most in depth way that you can deepen your understanding and your this is gonna sound kind of cheesy, but your knowledge relationship, whether reading, and that's great. You know, that's always great, especially if it's a very minor little resource. But sometimes, the rereading process can prove impractical, especially given things like time constraints or sudden compressions of the time you thought you had. And, and that sense, rereading can show up as an ideal way of going about things, but ideals need to have Plan B's. And if you set yourself up for a Plan B, just in case, by the way, by way of creating and annotations, then, you know, you may not have to experience any anxiety involved in those time crunches or compressions. But again, that's not the main purpose for the summary type and annotation. It's just an alternative use value for incorporating this into your critical reading practice. But the main purpose, again, as to jog your memory about the readings content or the thesis, so you don't have to reread the entire text. And these summaries are especially helpful if you have to read several text with similar similar titles, which can often be the case if you're reading around a central concept where that concept is often named directly in the titles of the articles. And that can be confusing, especially if you're just gaining familiarity with the content, remembering which articles said what and the you know finer subtleties of arguments that might be present about that content or concept. Rather, you need to have a little more direction than just the title to jog your memory. And also the end annotation summary, maybe its most useful quality is it's easily usable in the actual content of the essay you write.
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Because these these summative sentences about the articles, you can just drop those into introducing them in your text. That can save you a lot of time and headaches. You've probably also been given an annotated bibliography assignment at some point during your schooling career. The the annotated bibliography is not very dissimilar from the end annotations summary, the major difference between the end annotation summary and the annotated bibliography entry is that in the annotated bib, you provide a more comprehensive overview, you're getting closer and length to something like an abstract that might actually come at the beginning of a paper, especially if it's in a scientific journal or, you know, is heralded by those disciplines. But anyway, the abstracts of annotated bibliography entry, the end annotation summary, they're essentially very closely related variations on a theme. I mean, some people don't even make a distinction between the end annotation summary and the annotated bib entry. But I think there is enough of a separation from total overlap between the two that can allow particular distinction to enter in a knob so that you can name them differently. That's just a long winded way of saying they're pretty much the same thing. And it's okay to use the terms interchangeably or just use one for the both, you know, no big deal. But since we're talking about things in depth here, I give you the depth. However, do keep in mind, though, that an abstract is actually a highly conventionalized component of academic writing, though, you kind of take the the same approach in an abstract and an annotation or inside a bib. You can think of the abstract as being constructed by a kind of different rhetorical rulebook. You know, it can serve the same function as a summary or an annotated entry. But it's actual rhetorical construction and the choices, the rhetorical choices, that is that eventually yield it as a product, you know, a construction of language. Those choices are much more guided by its rulebook. Like I was saying, you know, it's a particular distinct set of type of vocations that define it as a writing genre. So yeah, you know, I don't want to get too hung up talking about abstracts right now. Because eventually there will more than likely be an entire episode dedicated to the abstract. Before now, I'm really just trying to prevent any confusion between the abstract and what we do with the NS annotation summary. So on that note, let's move on to the second type of end annotation, which is the response. So we had the summary, now we have the response, what is a response to do in the form of an end annotation? It captures your reaction to the work as a whole. Okay? It captures your reaction to the work as a whole. But what does that mean? Exactly? capturing your reaction to the work as a whole? I'm glad you asked. Well, here's the answer. I tried to capture in your note your response to the author's ideas, argument, writing style, or any other aspects of the reading that strikes you as important somehow important? Again, we're looking to bring in our responses, concerning the author's ideas, argument, writing style, or anything that strikes you as noteworthy. So why, what do we do with these responses once we have them? These are useful in a lot of ways, though, you know, don't overdo it with the responses, the responses can kind of cloud clear vision, if they take up too much of your visual field, especially if it's material that somehow challenges your existing beliefs. You know, if we've relied too much on responses when we're dealing with arguments that are, you know, not even just arguments, but
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narratives, perspectives, different stories by different people that might run against the grain of our norm of our quote, unquote, norm. The response can be more susceptible to undesirable transformations, such as a response, you know, being a subjective thing, forgetting about its subjectivity or masking around our magnet masking grant masquerading as as objectivity instead. But, you know, this is not to say that we should shape our responses in such a way that we start performing what we think we should do when we react to things. That kind of performativity is just as bad of a negative transformation as the one we've already mentioned. But here, you know, we get much closer to, to thinking about ideology. But that is definitely another conversation. So let me just rewind a bit and highlight the the usefulness of creating and annotation responses. These responses can help us form comments to offer in class when we discuss the piece, or just for any kind of conversation or discussion about it. And if we just don't know what to write, or how to start writing about some topic, you know, responses can give us entry points into doing that they can serve as good starting points for developing a topic for a paper or really just finding a way into beginning to talk about a reading. Like if you don't know how to approach it, if it's complex, complicated outside of your usual range, then make some notes about your reaction to the text. You know, it doesn't have to be anything fancy. Like you can start with something as straightforward as I found this reading confusing. What follows from that you start to answer the question, Why did I find it confusing? Then you go back into the reading find maybe a specific passage that just really threw you for a loop and start to explain in your own words, why it was confusing. That is, that already is a commitment to a closer reading of the text. You know, and guess what when you're doing that, you're talking about the text and I mean, not even just talking about it, you're you're writing about it might take some time to shape that writing into like an essay. Yeah, but you don't have the excuse of not knowing where to start because you can always start with your not knowing you know there's a there's a saying to take away
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