Annotation an effective device for student feedback: a critical review of the literature

The paper examines hand-written annotation, its many features, difficulties and strengths as a feedback tool. It extends and clarifies what modest evidence is in the public domain and offers an evaluation of how to use annotation effectively in the support of student feedback [Marshall, C.M., 1998a. The Future of Annotation in a Digital (paper) World. Presented at the 35th Annual GLSLIS Clinic: Successes and Failures of Digital Libraries, June 20-24, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, March 24, pp. 1-20; Marshall, C.M., 1998b. Toward an ecology of hypertext annotation. Hypertext. In: Proceedings of the Ninth ACM Conference on Hypertext and Hypermedia, June 20-24, Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, US, pp. 40-49; Wolfe, J.L., Nuewirth, C.M., 2001. From the margins to the centre: the future of annotation. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 15(3), 333-371; Diyanni, R., 2002. One Hundred Great Essays. Addison-Wesley, New York; Wolfe, J.L., 2002. Marginal pedagogy: how annotated texts affect writing-from-source texts. Written Communication, 19(2), 297-333; Liu, K., 2006. Annotation as an index to critical writing. Urban Education, 41, 192-207; Feito, A., Donahue, P., 2008. Minding the gap annotation as preparation for discussion. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 7(3), 295-307; Ball, E., 2009. A participatory action research study on handwritten annotation feedback and its impact on staff and students. Systemic Practice and Action Research, 22(2), 111-124; Ball, E., Franks, H., McGrath, M., Leigh, J., 2009. Annotation is a valuable tool to enhance learning and assessment in student essays. Nurse Education Today, 29(3), 284-291]. Although a significant number of studies examine annotation, this is largely related to on-line tools and computer mediated communication and not hand-written annotation as comment, phrase or sign written on the student essay to provide critique. Little systematic research has been conducted to consider how this latter form of annotation influences student learning and assessment or, indeed, helps tutors to employ better annotative practices [Juwah, C., Macfarlane-Dick, D., Matthew, B., Nicol, D., Ross, D., Smith, B., 2004. Enhancing student learning through effective formative feedback. The Higher Education Academy, 1-40; Jewitt, C., Kress, G., 2005. English in classrooms: only write down what you need to know: annotation for what? English in Education, 39(1), 5-18]. There is little evidence on ways to heighten students' self-awareness when their essays are returned with annotated feedback [Storch, N., Tapper, J., 1997. Student annotations: what NNS and NS university students say about their own writing. Journal of Second Language Writing, 6(3), 245-265]. The literature review clarifies forms of annotation as feedback practice and offers a summary of the challenges and usefulness of annotation.