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Benefits:
Having a comprehensive perspective on the piece, and a clear understanding of findings and conclusions can facilitate identifying areas where annotations are needed.
Annotating retrospectively allows researchers to be more selective about the types of annotations needed, potentially reducing the time required compared to annotating as the research progresses.
Annotations can serve to address reviewers’ comments without altering the main text.
Annotations can help reduce word counts by relocating detailed data to annotations or include additional data and resources without increasing the word count.
Challenges:
Evaluating the added value of annotations for the reader or examiners.
Recalling the methodological and analytical decision-making processes can be difficult without thorough documentation, especially if the research project was completed a while ago.
In collaborative writing it might be difficult to identify who collected data / analysed / wrote each part (harder still if members of the research team are no longer involved). Reconstructing the analytical process of others can be challenging without detailed records.
Starting point:
Strategy: Annotate essential content that showcases transparency and rigour of the research project but could not be included in the paper due to the limitations of conventional publishing formats.
Read the full paper and footnotes to identify areas that need further clarification of text that can be converted into annotations.
Consider converting footnotes to annotations.
Identify data needed to clarify methodology and arguments or show different viewpoints.
Process:
Start with annotations that are easier. For example, reflecting on methods and data collection already conducted and familiar to the researcher.
Follow up with epistemological / theoretical discussions that shaped the analysis.
When including data, consider ethical commitments and data governance obligations (such as GDPR). This may entail using APA (American Psychological Association) ethical principles regarding data disclosure; ethics applications; and FAIR and CARE principles.
Being self-reflective continuously, asking if the annotations are clear enough and if they achieve the objectives of enhancing transparency and rigour.
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