2 Activity: Model Article Annotation

This book is running in a long beta. Revisions are currently underway. Check back in January 2025 for updated content.

For each section of the research article, you will be completing a model article annotation task. This task can be done using results from your Choose a Model Article and Compile a Corpus from chapter one. You can choose to complete the task using a web-based software called Dissemity that contains a set of tools and automated feedback for analyzing research and later writing your work. The steps below will take you through the completion of this task by using Dissemity, but this task can be completed using any annotation or highlighting tools.

The objective of this task is to:

• help you analyze your model article for Goals, Strategies, and Language Use,
• visualize the argument structure of a good example piece of writing,
• practice being a critical reader to inform your writing process, and
• identify Language Use patterns.

Here are the steps for completing this task:

Step 1. Go to https://dissemity.com/ and create an account to get started. Watch the video introduction for help.

Step 2.  Upon login, go to the ANALYZE module.

Step 3. Paste your model article from your Choose a Model Article and Compile a Corpus activity. If you copy and paste from a PDF, the formatting will need to be cleaned up in Dissemity. Just make sure there are no line breaks in the middle of a sentence by editing the file after pasting.

Step 5. Click on the first sentence and then use the dropdown menu to determine what Goal and Strategy are utilized. Remember that one sentence may accomplish multiple Goals and/or Strategies, but you should choose the most prominent one. Alternatively, you can use highlights or a technology that allows you to highlight sentences (e.g., a PDF viewer) in different colors.

Step 6. Annotate the Introduction section based on what you have learned thus far. Your progress will save automatically in Dissemity. You can continue to annotate other articles in your corpus for additional practice and understanding of writing in your field. This is highly encouraged!

Step 7. Reflect on the following questions:

• Which Goals and Strategies seem to be most common in your field?

• Which Goals and Strategies seem to be least common, or nonexistent, in your field?

• What is the researcher trying to communicate through each Goal and Strategy?

• What have you learned from completing this task?