Effects of annotations on student readers and writers

Results indicate that annotations improve recall of emphasized items, influence how specific arguments in the source materials are perceived, decrease students' tendencies to unnecessarily summarize, and implications for the design and implementation of digitally annotated materials are discussed.

Abstract

Recent research on annotations has focused on how readers annotate texts, ignoring the question of how reading annotations might affect subsequent readers of a text. This paper reports on a study of persuasive essays written by 123 undergraduates receiving primary source materials annotated in various ways. Findings indicate that annotations improve Findings indicate that annotations improve recall of emphasized items, influence how specific arguments in the source materials are perceived, decrease students' tendencies to unnecessarily summarize. Of particular interest is that students' perceptions of the annotator appeared to greatly influence how they responded to the annotated material. Using this study as a basis, I discuss implications for the design and implementation of digitally annotated materials.