As described on the Annotation page, there are many ways to do it. For Your Book Club, I encourage you to experiment with different methods. You will likely find one to be the most enjoyable and useful for learning. For annotating Wikipedia articles, you will use a particular annotation method, which I think is best and, at a minimum, certainly one you should practice.
In each Wikipedia article, you will summarize each paragraph. Each summary should be:
In your own words; no quotation (or plagiarism).
One sentence in length; not less, not more.
Highlighted in yellow.
Before you can annotate a Wikipedia article that way, you must put its content into a Word Document.
How to Make Wikipedia Articles into Word Docs
To complete the assignment, you must make each Wikipedia article into a Word document — or “*.docx”, for short — that you can take notes in.1 One way to do so is easier, but has an uglier result. The other way is harder but has a prettier result. It is your choice on which to do; to be clear, the choice will not affect your grade.
Easier but Uglier Result
On the Wikipedia article’s page:
Put the mouse cursor, i.e. pointer, on the left side of the article’s title
Click and hold the left mouse button
Scroll all the way down until you’ve highlighted everything in the article
While still highlighted, copy the text by pressing Ctrl+C or by right-clicking on the mouse and selecting “Copy”
Open a new *.docx
Paste the text into the doc by pressing Ctrl+V or by right-clicking on the mouse and selecting “Paste”
Do whatever you need/want to save the *.docx to your computer, flash drive, or whatever
Digital Crime Problem - Make Wikipedia Articles into Word Docs, Easier but Uglier Result
Harder but Prettier Result
On the Wikipedia article’s page:
In the left column, choose the option to “Download as PDF”
On the next page, click “Download”
Do whatever you need/want to save the PDF to your computer, flash drive, or whatever
Open the PDF
Click “File” and then click and “Save As”
Under where it says “File name”, click the scroll men for “Save as Type”
Select “Word Document (*.docx)” and click save
Do whatever you need/want to save the *.docx to your computer, flash drive, or whatever
Digital Crime Problem - Make Wikipedia Articles into Word Docs, Harder but Prettier Result
FYI: Making “Comments” in Word Docs & PDFs
Word documents and Adobe PDFs do have built-in ways to do annotation. In both, these are called “comments”. For details on how to make them, see here and here. We do not use these functions for this assignment because, compared to writing summaries under text, they are (1) harder to grade and, more importantly, (2) less apt to produce good annotation.2
What is a “Paragraph” in Wikipedia Articles?
You may think it is obvious what is a paragraph. Usually, that is true in Wikipedia articles. However, there are places in some articles where it becomes unclear. This has implications for what you need to summarize in each article.
For example, let us examine Wikipedia’s article on soccer, formally known as association football. Look at the first screenshot, below.
It is clear that the space between “… into the opposing goal” and “Football is played in accordance…” is a paragraph break.
Someone may reasonably wonder about the following, however:
Is the italicized material at the top a paragraph? Or a series of paragraphs? For this assignment, at least, the answer is no. If something is italicized, you do not need to summarize it.
What about the description and information underneath the picture? No. If something is in a box with a picture, you do not need to summarize it.
Now look at the second screenshot.
Is the bullet-pointed material part of a paragraph? Yes, it is part of the paragraph beginning with “The recognized international…”.
Now look at the third screenshot.
Is anything under “See Also”, “Notes”, or “References” a paragraph? For this assignment, at least, the answer is no. If something is underneath those headings, or in a section among them (e.g., “External links”), you do not need to summarize it.
Furthermore, there is the question of what to do with figures, tables, and other visual depictions of information. There are several examples on Wikipedia’s article on List of FIFA World Cup finals. These visuals are not paragraphs, so you do not need to summarize them. However, they are often very useful to learning, so you should give them a look and try to get something out of them.
Finally, there is one type of paragraph that you are not required to summarize: If information is underneath a country-specific heading, you do not need to summarize it. See, for example, the fourth screenshot, which is from the Wikipedia article on Cyberwarfare.
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