An introduction to annotation as a genre-a synthesis of reading, thinking, writing, and communication-and its significance in scholarship and everyday life. Annotation-the addition of a note to a text-is an everyday and social activity that provides information, shares commentary, sparks conversation, expresses power, and aids learning. It helps mediate the relationship between reading and writing. This volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series offers an introduction to annotation and its literary, scholarly, civic, and everyday significance across historical and contemporary contexts. It approaches annotation as a genre-a synthesis of reading, thinking, writing, and communication-and offer examples of annotation that range from medieval rubrication and early book culture to data labeling and online reviews. Series Overview- ACCESSIBLE, CONCISE, BEAUTIFULLY PRODUCED BOOKS ON TOPICS OF CURRENT INTEREST. Written by leading thinkers, this series delivers expert overviews of subjects that range from the cultural and the historical to the scientific and the technical. Synthesizing specialized subject matter for nonspecialists and engaging critical topics through fundamentals, each of these compact volumes offers readers a point of access to complex ideas.