An annotation is a brief summary of the content of a document, such as an article, book, bachelor's or master's thesis, or even a project. It aims to inform the reader about the topic, scope and main ideas of the work and to help them decide whether it is worth reading it in more detail.
Types of annotations
Annotations can be distinguished according to whether
- are firmly attached to the document
and is created by its author (for example, the annotation or abstract of a technical article); - and are created by someone else, an editor or reviewer (e.g. annotations on the bookmark and cover of a book, DVD, etc.);
- but are created after the fact (e.g. reader's notes in the margin of a book, discussion of a Wikipedia article, etc.);
- are not physically connected to the text
and briefly characterise its content to facilitate user selection (e.g. annotations in the database, bibliography, publisher's catalogue); - assess and critique the document from the point of view of users or experts (brief reviews, review notes in journals, blogs, etc.).
Annotation on the web
Completely new annotation possibilities are offered on the web, where it is possible to create not only discussion pages on top of the original documents, but also one or several layers of annotation, for example for different user communities, for different interest groups, etc. Web annotation systems are often part of standard search engines and browsers, online bookstore menu pages, and so on. Special software already exists for these purposes, for example:
- a.nnotate: http://a.nnotate.com/
- co-ment: https://web.archive.org/web/20081224160417/http://www.co-ment.net/
- cozimo (now ReviewStudio): https://www.reviewstudio.com/
- Archived by Fleck: https://web.archive.org/web/20081104010039/http://www.fleck.com/
- Protonotes: http://www.protonotes.com/
- Archived from: Webnotes: https://web.archive.org/web/20081101080345/http://www.webnotes.net/.
