Genius and Citations

Citations are necessary in any academic work. Online, they’re one of the few ways of verifying a fact or claim. As such, citations serve an integral role in Genius annotations. Although they serve different roles in onsite and offsite annotations, both are an essential, though often underrated part of Genius.

Anyone can annotate texts on Genius. This means that anyone can add their own interpretation of a song, or reference outside interviews and sources. In this sort of setup, citations are really the only way that other users can verify another users claims. Without them, an editor has no way of knowing if an interview or article even exists, much less whether it has been interpreted correctly, unless they do the same research. This produces a lot of redundant research- citations make sure that any reader is using the same starting information when they look at a text.

Another way of making better annotations is to link an individual line of a song to a larger concept or issue. For example, if a song alludes to homelessness, a really good annotation not only comments on the importance of that within the song, but can also provide information or statistics about homelessness and its causes. These types of annotations, where indirect references are expanded into concrete knowledge about a field, not only make for interesting annotations, but have an educational purpose in their own right. For these annotations citations are even more necessary because you are references facts unrelated to the text. For the annotation to have any factual legitimacy it needs citations.

Onsite citations also provide convenience and legitimacy to annotations. Not only do they provide additional information that has been verified by other sources, but they also put that additional information at your fingertips. This encourages more research and investigation on the part of the reader, as well as making sure that the writers of annotations fully research their annotations.

The role of citations changes for off-site annotations. Although all of the above factors still apply to the writing of annotations, the role of the annotation itself has shifted. Where before an annotation would analyze the lyrics of a song and then provide a link to an article about the song, off-site annotations can annotate that article directly. Especially for news articles, this introduces the possibility of using annotations are a fact-checking vehicle. If an article or politician make a claim in a speech or an article, Genius annotations can serve as an immediate way of connecting claims to the relevant facts or pointing out inaccuracies. In an online world where information if becoming increasingly confused among thousands or sources, this provides a needed way to add clarity and facts to public discussion.

As always, view my annotations (complete with citations), here.