Effective Commenting with NowComment®

Here are a few tricks for effectively commenting with NowComment:

1.Different Conversations for Different Topics

If you're saying something on the same topic as an existing comment, just click the "reply" link to join the existing conversation.You can reply to anyone, not just the most recent commenter.

But if your comment introduces a new topic, then start a new conversation by double clicking (on text to comment on the specific sentence, on the paragraph number for a general paragraph comment, or on the Document-level link at the bottom of the page for a comment not tied to any particular passage).

2.Write communicative, informative Summary Lines

Just as emails have subject lines that help you decide what the message is about and whether main point and whether it's relevant to you or not, NowComment comments have Summary Lines so people can skim them to decide which comments they want to read.If your Summary Lines don't do that, we'd recommend expanding them.

If everything you have to say fits on the Summary Line, it's fine to leave the rest of the comment empty; better to have an expressive Summary Line!

3.Summary Line Don'ts

• No need to say that you're responding to a comment — your comment will be automatically indented below the other comment to show that connection.
• Don't write your name or the paragraph# — the system adds both automatically.
• Don't repeat someone else's Summary Line when you reply to it; your Summary Line should communicate your main point!

Here are some interesting samples of good commenting style:

Commenting on Images and Photos

The mesmerizing painting The Raft of Medusa portrays desperate sailors stranded at sea:

Commenting on Text

How much do you know about the origins of Thanksgiving, our Fall harvest holiday?Most Americans just know that we eat a lot of turkey on the fourth Thursday in November (vegetarians excluded).

Commenting on Videos

You can use start and end times in the Summary Line to point people to particular segments of a clip.For example, here's one of the first (and creepiest) film adaptations of Bram Stoker's Dracula, director F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu:

DMU Timestamp: March 15, 2012 22:35