2b. Introduction to Hypothes.is

Note that the images used below have been shamelessly reused from another course to save time. Please forgive me for this.

Requirements

In order for you to complete this exercise, you will need to have

• successfully logged into the class Teams

• signed up for a Hypothes.is account

What you need to do

Write hypothes.is annotations on the readings for week 2 - "What are Games and why do they interest historians?".

Why bother:

Writing annotations on the readings has many purposes.

• It helps you engage better with the text - it slows down your eyes so that you stop just trying to process content and start to think critically about the import of what you are reading.

• this is also the first step of the Smart Notes system we are trying to get you introduced to through these exercises.

Steps

First you need to have registered for an account, got hypothes.is set up in a browser, and you need to have joined the class annotation group (Click this link to join after you have created an account).

Here is a general introduction to the medium.

The text you are reading is on the left, and annotations (comments/ notes) are on the right.

When you select the text with your mouse/cursor, you are given the option to annotate or highlight. Choose "annotate".

Once you choose annotate, you can type as much as you wish and add a tag to help categorize your annotation (this is an important step!)

Annotations look like this, once they are posted:

The benefit of doing this in an annotation group is that we can reply to each other, ask questions, or request clarification. Or link to other readings, or resources on the internet.

Our reading group Historical Game Studies is private to its members. You can see who belongs to the group and what annotations have been made so far by clicking on the group link. It will bring you to be a page that looks like this:

As of the time of the screenshooting this, only a few people had joined and annotated, understandably. Note that there is an "Untitled Document" (essentially a pdf on my hard drive) that is also noted as being commented on.

You can click on annotations your colleagues have made and then see both the text that they have highlighted and their comments. Usually, you should be able to click on an annotation and then click on "see in context" and it will take you to the reading and the specific part of the reading. This does not always work as hoped for. You will need to be signed into the Carleton library account if you are off campus, local files usually won't be accessible (unless you have the same file on your computer – but this only works sometimes); and sometimes the layers of digital rights protection academic publishers use largely break the ability to click back in context. In the above example, you can click through to the annotations on the "Philosophy of Games" article (second text), but not Games: Art as Agency (first text).

Generally, your goal is to use annotation in the same way as you might use a highlighter or marginal notes when you're reading a physical book.

Taking Notes

When you're working on a project, you take all sorts of notes. You brainstorm ideas and write them down, you make notes as you are reading other sources and you start to form notes that combine your original ideas and your thoughts that arise from reading other texts (or playing games, or listening to podcasts etc.). Your goal in annotation is the first step in making what Sönke Ahrens calls literature notes (see How to Take Smart Notes One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking – for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers. 2017):

Make literature notes. Whenever you read something, make notes about the content. Write down what you don’t want to forget or think you might use in your own thinking or writing. Keep it very short, be extremely selective, and use your own words. Be extra selective with quotes – don’t copy them to skip the step of really understanding what they mean. Keep these notes together with the bibliographic details in one place – your reference system.

The key to this system is that you try to keep the future-you in mind (the future-you who will have forgotten most of what is the context of what you are thinking about). Your annotations must rephrase text you are highlighting and tell yourself (and others) why specifically you should care about it.

In future weeks, we will get you to export these annotations into Obsidian notes for longevity, seachability and reuse.