Digital Annotation Option on Mecca paper based on new source using feminist and narritive criticisms
Audience Interested parties (mostly students) who may not have any background in
rhetorical criticism
Purpose To enter a scholarly conversation about rhetoric by highlighting the most
salient rhetorical features of the text and getting the audience to explore
them with you.
In this option, you will annotate the actual text of the speech with notes, videos, links and
discussion to other work, and your rhetorical analysis. These annotations should walk a
reader through the rhetorical features of the text in a way that supports an overall
rhetorical exploration of the text. Do not draw the readers’ attention to every rhetorical
feature of the text, but only those features that you deem most salient to helping them
understand your reading of the text and helping them explore the possibilities of
rhetorical criticism with you. You should develop your analysis beyond the Aristotelian
methods, though they can be included, and beyond the paper you wrote on the text.
With the digital annotation, you are not merely putting your paper in another format, but
allowing that format to push your analysis further than it went in the paper. Not having to
worry about structure, quoting, paraphrasing, etc., can help you focus on the analysis of
the text itself. You should add different kinds of media besides text. So, include
annotations that have pictures, videos, and hyperlinks. Instead of citing your material and
secondary criticism in a traditional Works Cited page with parenthetical in-text citations,
your annotations should hyperlink to those sources (or the homepage of the journal being
cited). Include as much detail about the source you are citing as you cite it. Here is an
example:
Rhetorical critic Karlyn Kohrs Campbell has identified a feminine style as a
specific kind of rhetorical strategy, often employed by women, that focuses on
collaboration with the audience. In her article “The Discursive Performance of
Femininity: Hating Hillary,” published in the journal Rhetoric and Public
Affairs, she applies Judith Butler’s theory of the performance of femininity to
show how what she deems “Hillary hate” is a specific response to Clinton’s
lack of feminine style in her speeches.
(Note that the reader will have enough to go on to find the article if they are not on
campus where the link will bring them directly to the article; I have provided the author
of the article, the name of the article, and the name of the journal).
Here are some platforms you might consider to complete your digital annotation:
• Hypothes.is is a simple browser extension that allows for annotation.
(http://hypothes.is/)
• Genius.com is another option that allows multimedia annotations.
(http://genius.com/). You may need an account for this one.
• Digital Research Tools site has a list of digital annotation tools
(http://dirtdirectory.org/tadirah/annotating).
• You can repurpose some commonly used tools in a make-your-own-platform
method. This blog post covers some options:
https://fusionfinds.wordpress.com/2013/12/10/digital-annotation-tools-for-
close-reading/ .
For the workshops, start by focusing on what you want to say in the annotation and then
choose the platform based on your needs. You should submit the final link to Blackboard
assignments by the due date. (Some of the platforms, like Genius, may include other
users who might respond and edit your annotations. Begin such annotations with a note
that lets them know the project is for a class and you welcome their comments, but not
any editing).
