Why Connotations and Annotations? To understand annotations means to learn more about their forms and functions. Annotations may range from text tagging and markup to interpretive notes. They contribute to understanding and interpretation without necessarily being interpretive themselves. In order to trigger a fruitful debate on annotations, we have opened the special issue with a provocatively normative claim: annotations, at least explanatory annotations published online and in scholarly editions, must be clearly subservient and conducive to the hermeneutic process. Priorities about what to annotate can help, especially in a digital context in which there are no technical limits to the number of annotations. And what the annotator, especially after feedback from a group of readers and co-annotators, can show to be relevant to an understanding of the poem, play, or novel, should have first priority. But this is open to critical debate.

From: Matthias Bauer and Angelika Zirker, “Understanding (Through) Annotations: Introductory Remarks”