Clean-up Projects and Editing

Because Genius relies on crowd-sourced annotations, there is always a variable degree of annotations on the site. This variability means a constant push and shove between annotations that merely paraphrase or repeat lyrics, and annotations that actually analyze a text. The two main tools one the side of analysis and aesthetically pleasing annotations are Editors and Clean-up Projects.

Editors are in charge of accepting, rejecting, and editing annotations, and generally maintaining the quality of annotations on the site. Clean-up projects are a more focused version of this. A user takes a page, generally one with a large number of pageviews, and makes it better. This means editing annotations so that all are fully proofread, quality annotations, and in some cases changing the verse structure to avoid redundant lines.

Last week I cleaned up My Chemical Romance’s Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na). This meant rejecting or accepting the 20 or so unreviewed annotations on the page, then writing new ones to take their place. I also edited the already reviewed annotations for spelling, grammar, and analysis of the song. Then I did a variety of aesthetic edits. These included making sure that links had uniform formatting, adding pictures to annotations, and duplicating annotations so that they covered repeated lines in the chorus.

This week I’m cleaning up the song “Cigarette Daydreams” by Cage the Elephant. This page, while better annotated, presents its own challenges. Where Na Na Na was part of a concept album with an entire narrative and world associated with it, Cigarette Daydreams is more straightforward. The challenge here will be deepening the annotations, and tying relatively straightforward lyrics to the creation of the song, or the band’s work as a whole.

For example, every page on genius has a description. When I started, the description of Cigarette Daydreams looked like this:

This song is a reflection on someone the singer loves but has lost. He’s smoking a cigarette and daydreaming about her.

The entire song is a collection of things he is mulling over, and features several clear images of her combined with the knowledge that she is gone.

Brad Shultz says, “This is a song that Matt had written and had played to me on his phone. He was talking about maybe using it for something other than Cage, but I was an instant fan of the song. This was a moment of realization like, ‘Why do we have to write Cage The Elephant songs? We can just write songs, regardless of what style of music they might be.’

“I like the idea of doing things that people might not expect from us. So we decided to take a whole new approach to writing, and this song is a good example of that. It’s just about being honest.

“I’m really happy about how we came through the process and opened ourselves up to new ways of accepting any kind of song. This one almost fell through the cracks, but here it is.”

Matt said that this a song about his wife and how he met her.

(Followed by a picture of Matt and his wife looking happy.)

My first edit is to find a source for the quote. By googling a few sentences, I can find the site which the quote was taken from. Then I reformat the quotes. The three paragraph quote is introduced by “Brad Shultz says,” which works but doesn’t tell us who Brad Shultz is. I replace that with “In the words of Brad Shultz, the band’s rhythm guitarist,” and place this on a separate line from the quote. Annotation formatting allows us to make the three quotes blockquotes, making them easier to distinguish. I then make changes to the introduction, editing it so that it does more than just summarize the lyrics. In addition, I delete the final sentence, “Matt said that this a song about his wife and how he met her.” because I cannot find any sources or interviews with the lead singer verifying this. This means that the photo of the two together is no longer relevant, so I replace it with a link to the music video for the song that features both of them. The final annotation would look something like this:

This is the final track of Cage the Elephant’s 2013 album, Melophobia. It presents the pain of one’s search for identity through the musings of a parted lover. The song itself has a softer, more brooding sound than most of Cage the Elephant’s work.

In the words of Brad Shultz, the band’s rhythm guitarist,

“ Why do we have to write Cage The Elephant songs? We can just write songs, regardless of what style of music they might be.

I like the idea of doing things that people might not expect from us. So we decided to take a whole new approach to writing, and this song is a good example of that. It’s just about being honest.

Matt Shultz, the lead singer, adds

“ I also think we censor how honest we are because we’re afraid to hurt people or perhaps give too much or ourselves away. With “Cigarette Dreams” and the whole record, I really struggled to be transparent and speak from naked honesty.

Source and source.

These themes are visualized in the song’s music video, a video presented in nostalgic black and white and disappointing only for its notable lack of rain.

(Video.)

As always, view the annotated version of this post at http://genius.com/elizabethposs.blogspot.com.

Weekly Update #1: How To Write a Good Annotation

Over the last week, I’ve been active in a number of projects within Genius. I’ve continued my work annotating AP Latin texts, annotated a variety of off-site articles, begun transcribing and annotating an album, and completed a clean-up project on a page with over 15 thousand views. However, this week I thought I would explain the most basic part of Genius- the annotation.

The aim of an annotation is to provide the reader with information necessary to a text that they that they wouldn’t have otherwise. In some cases this is an explanation of slang or jargon, or information about an allusion or outside facts. This analysis is supplemented by jokes, pictures, and outside links, creating something that is both easy to read and informative. The form of an annotation changes depending on what you’re annotating- an annotation for a song lyric will be different than one for a latin text or a poem.

The best annotations have three elements. The first is analysis- this makes up the bulk of the annotation, and is the part where you say whatever it is that you meant to say when you decided to make the annotation. For a song, this could be tying a verse in to an album’s larger themes, or commenting on the instrumentation behind the vocal line. For a poem or literary work, it would include more basic literary analysis, as well as historical context. If the text is in another language, then the annotation has a new purpose- to present a translation, and discuss the intricacies of the translation, as well as any alternative meanings.

The second and third elements are optional, although a good annotation always has one of the two. The second part is a picture, video, or some other type of visual addition. This gives the annotation a nicer appearance, and can be an easy way to add some amount of humor. After all- a picture is worth a thousand words. The final element is your sources. These are the outside links, interviews, or scholarly articles that you used to find information for the annotation. After all, no analysis is complete without its sources.

As always, view an annotated version of this post at genius.com/elizabethposs.blogspot.com.

Welcome and Explanation

Welcome! I'm Elizabeth Poss, a senior at Basis Tucson North. As a senior, I’ve been given the opportunity to spend the last part of the year doing an independent senior research project (SRP). I’ve chosen to spend this time combining my work on Genius with my knowledge in different academic areas. This will take the form of an online internship with Genius, where I meet regularly with staff and other users to help contribute to existing projects, and lead my own. I plan to use both Genius’s interdisciplinary nature and my own curiosity to see how much I can learn, and what I can achieve if I give myself the time and resources to study anything that interests me.

What is Genius? Genius is a site based on the idea of annotating. Any written text can be uploaded to the site, and users can highlight portions of the text and annotate them. At their best, annotations are witty, concise explications of the slang, science, or other allusions in a text. When they are combined with pictures, diagrams, or outside links, they provide an effective way to explain and add commentary to written works. Genius has anything from the newest song by Kanye West, to the side effects on a bottle of Tylenol.

My work on Genius will involve a variety of annotation projects, but my current work will focus on developing a set of study materials for learning Latin. My ultimate aim will be to annotate all the required reading for the AP Latin exam. Because so few people take this exam, there are very few study guides or other aids, so my aim will be to develop a comprehensive set of annotated texts and instructional materials to help those trying to study for the AP Latin exam.

In addition, I will be using Genius’s /theinternet expansion. This lets Genius users make annotations on websites, by putting “genius.com/” in front of the url. For example, you can view an annotated version of this blog at genius.com/elizabethposs.blogspot.com.