1. IF YOU DON’T KNOW,
NOW YOU KNOW
How to Annotate Like a Journalist
Aviva Hope Rutkin
MAS700 Final Project

2. IF YOU DON’T KNOW,
NOW YOU KNOW
How to Annotate Like a Journalist
Aviva Hope Rutkin
MAS700 Final Project
partnews.brownbag.me
22 y.o., Jewish,
Long Island native,
MIT grad student,
awesome journalist
from Notorious B.I.G.’s ‘Juicy’

3. WHY ANNOTATE?
And if you have managed to graduate from college
without ever having written “Man vs. Nature”
in a margin, perhaps now
is the time to take one step forward.
We have all seized the white perimeter as our own
and reached for a pen if only to show
we did not just laze in an armchair turning pages;
we pressed a thought into the wayside,
planted an impression along the verge.
-- Billy Collins, ‘Marginalia’

4. WHY ANNOTATE?
Smithsonian, ‘Document Deep Dive’
Gawker reader photo comments
Wired’s 20th
anniversary
rerelease

5. WHY ANNOTATE?
* improve the depth of your coverage
* dumping ground for trivia
* tell complex stories concisely
* currency of collaboration (like links)
* enable transparency
* increase communication
* enhance personal knowledge
* encourage use of primary texts

6. I annotated five kinds of texts
using different annotation platforms,
then developed a list of rules to
aid other would-be annotaters.
MY PROJECT

7. EX. 1: SCIENTIFIC PAPER

8. EX. 1: SCIENTIFIC PAPER
RapGenius

9. Corn Flour, Sugar, Peanut Butter
(Peanuts, Dextrose, Hydrogenated
Vegetable Oil [Cottonseed and
Rapeseed Oil]**, Salt), Oat Flour,
Rice Flour, Coconut Oil, Salt,
Caramel Color, Niacinamide*,
Reduced Iron, Zinc Oxide, BHT (A
Preservative), Thiamin
Mononitrate*, Pyridoxine
Hydrochloride*, Riboflavin*, Folic
Acid*.
* One of the B Vitamins.
** Adds a Dietarily Insignificant
Amount of Trans Fat
Contains Peanut Ingredients
as listed on capncrunch.com
EX. 2: GARAGE SCIENCE

10. EX. 2: GARAGE SCIENCE
a.nnotate

11. EX. 3: SCIENCE COVERAGE

12. EX. 3: SCIENCE COVERAGE
nb.mit.edu

13. EX. 4: COVERAGE CRITIQUE
Who you even have the possibility to be starts at conception. If you
think genes don’t affect how people behave, consider this fact: if you
are a carrier of a particular set of genes, the probability that you will
commit a violent crime is four times as high as it would be if you lacked
those genes. You’re three times as likely to commit robbery, five times
as likely to commit aggravated assault, eight times as likely to be
arrested for murder, and 13 times as likely to be arrested for a sexual
offense. The overwhelming majority of prisoners carry these genes;
98.1 percent of death-row inmates do. These statistics alone indicate
that we cannot presume that everyone is coming to the table equally
equipped in terms of drives and behaviors.
And this feeds into a larger lesson of biology: we are not the ones
steering the boat of our behavior, at least not nearly as much as we
believe. Who we are runs well below the surface of our conscious
access, and the details reach back in time to before our birth, when the
meeting of a sperm and an egg granted us certain attributes and not
others. Who we can be starts with our molecular blueprints—a series of
alien codes written in invisibly small strings of acids—well before we
have anything to do with it. Each of us is, in part, a product of our
inaccessible, microscopic history. By the way, as regards that
dangerous set of genes, you’ve probably heard of them. They are
summarized as the Y chromosome. If you’re a carrier, we call you a
male.

14. EX. 4: COVERAGE CRITIQUE
Who you even have the possibility to be starts at conception. If you
think genes don’t affect how people behave, consider this fact: if you
are a carrier of a particular set of genes, the probability that you will
commit a violent crime is four times as high as it would be if you lacked
those genes. You’re three times as likely to commit robbery, five times
as likely to commit aggravated assault, eight times as likely to be
arrested for murder, and 13 times as likely to be arrested for a sexual
offense. The overwhelming majority of prisoners carry these genes;
98.1 percent of death-row inmates do. These statistics alone indicate
that we cannot presume that everyone is coming to the table equally
equipped in terms of drives and behaviors.
And this feeds into a larger lesson of biology: we are not the ones
steering the boat of our behavior, at least not nearly as much as we
believe. Who we are runs well below the surface of our conscious
access, and the details reach back in time to before our birth, when the
meeting of a sperm and an egg granted us certain attributes and not
others. Who we can be starts with our molecular blueprints—a series of
alien codes written in invisibly small strings of acids—well before we
have anything to do with it. Each of us is, in part, a product of our
inaccessible, microscopic history. By the way, as regards that
dangerous set of genes, you’ve probably heard of them. They are
summarized as the Y chromosome. If you’re a carrier, we call you a
male.

15. EX. 5: NON-TEXT

16. EX. 5: NON-TEXT
szoter

17. 1. Check yourself.

18. 2. Anticipate
questions.

19. 3. Make
connections.

20. 4. Open up.

21. 5. Bury prizes.

22. 6. Always
illustrate.

23. 7. Invite
conversation.

24. IN CONCLUSION
1. Check yourself.
2. Anticipate questions.
3. Make connections.
4. Open up.
5. Bury prizes.
6. Always illustrate.
7. Invite conversation.
I COMB AA?
The Ethan
Z. Triangle

25. NEXT STEPS?
* compile more comprehensive
list of platforms and their +/-s
* attempt “real” reporting
projects using these rules
* curate gallery of more
ex.s of annotation in media