Hypothesis Annotation: PDFs, Private Groups & Note Exports

What Hypothesis does

Hypothesis adds highlights, annotations, page notes and discussion to digital readings. It is a supporting annotation tool in an AI-assisted research workflow: after discovering a paper or inspecting a generated explanation, you can keep your own question and interpretation close to the original. Its personal web app and institutional LMS assignments have different identity, audience and access arrangements. This guide follows public documentation and reports no installed-extension or classroom trial.

Choose the annotation audience and the record you need

A personal reading note, a class discussion and an exported record need different checks.

Where it fits, and where it falls short

A suggested Hypothesis workflow

1. 1

   Retain the source identity and choose a passage you have actually read.

2. 2

   Choose a personal or group audience before writing the annotation.

3. 3

   Separate the quoted passage from your interpretation, question and unresolved evidence.

4. 4

   Inspect an export alongside the source and keep the required discussion context separately.

Give highlights, annotations and page notes different jobs

A highlight retains a selected passage without an attached note. An annotation attaches your writing to selected text; a page note records an observation about the reading as a whole. Replies support discussion around a note. Select the form that makes your reading decision recoverable rather than highlighting every interesting sentence.

For an empirical paper, keep the author’s wording distinct from your interpretation. A useful annotation can ask which comparison supports a result or record why the population differs from your project. A formatted note and a discussion thread do not, by themselves, establish that the interpretation is correct.

• Inspect a study’s methods, results and source locations before annotating

Supporting documentation: [1] [2]

Check the audience before posting the note

In the web app, annotations in the Public layer are public by default, while highlights remain visible only to their author. Open and Restricted groups are also public annotation spaces. A group name alone therefore does not establish a private audience.

Private-group annotations are visible to group members. A link to one does not give a nonmember permission to read it. Notes can also be made personal with Only Me. Check the actual scope and posting option: a private group is shared with its members, while a personal annotation is a different choice.

Before a reading session, decide which observations belong in discussion and which remain personal working notes. The group-creation guide also warns against annotating a private group’s activity page in the Public channel, which can expose the group’s existence. Membership controls do not replace attention to where you post.

Supporting documentation: [3] [4]

Keep access to the PDF separate from access to its notes

For a locally saved PDF, the official guide describes a desktop or laptop Chrome-extension route with access to file URLs enabled. Check that text can be selected and copied; an image-only scan needs text recognition first. Do not assume a route described for ordinary webpages works identically inside every browser’s PDF viewer.

The PDF recovery guide says local files must be reopened from the original document to see annotations in context; the activity page cannot automatically reopen a Local file entry. An online PDF can be revisited at its URL, and an LMS-hosted reading may require returning through that course. Keep the source file or permitted access route available alongside the note.

Before sharing a reading task, confirm that participants can open the intended work and version. Seeing the same title in an activity list is not proof that everyone has the PDF. A saved annotation is also not permission to redistribute a restricted source.

Supporting documentation: [5] [9]

Distinguish a private web group from a course assignment

The personal web app uses a Hypothesis account and a browser activation route. A private web group can be created with a name and invite link. An institutional LMS assignment supplies a course context and its own group arrangement; follow the course’s actual entry point before creating an unrelated personal group.

In the LMS app, an assignment without group subdivision uses the course group. With groups enabled, students see their group’s shared annotations and instructors participate across groups; instructor notes are visible in the group where posted. Fully private annotations remain visible only to their author. Do not infer that a private note has been submitted for peer or instructor reading.

Agree what the assignment requires: a question tied to a passage, a response to a peer or a synthesis across readings. Posting more annotations does not automatically meet that purpose. Check the course’s instructions and institutional feature access separately from the personal web-app workflow.

Supporting documentation: [1] [4] [7] [8]

Choose a note export without promising a restored discussion

The export guide lets you select accessible annotations for one document and group, with author selection. Formats are JSON, plain text, CSV and HTML; reimport requires JSON.

Imported notes appear as the importer’s annotations. Top-level annotations and page notes can import, but exported replies do not. Reimport is a new copy with these limits.

Keep the export with the source identity. Reopen it and check what you actually retained before using it in a literature review or class handoff. A note export does not establish that you saved the PDF or the whole research library.

• Develop checked reading notes into summary, evaluation and relevance
• Keep reference-library transfer and recovery planning distinct from note export

Supporting documentation: [6]

A proposed check: keep your note useful outside the sidebar

Choose a permitted source you already understand and one passage whose qualification matters. Write your own note containing the claim you can support, the source location and a question that remains unresolved. Use the audience your task requires. This is a suggested exercise, not a Hypothesis session completed by AI Essay.

For a constructed example, imagine a group note asks where the author defines a term. A reply corrects the original page number and points to the definition. Your retained record needs that correction and a route back to the passage, as well as a clear distinction between the author’s definition and the reader’s explanation. Inspect the original before writing your own answer; copying a discussion is not the same as checking its claim.

When you actually export a note, reopen the file and try to identify the source and recover the passage without relying on memory. Inspect whether your own explanation remains distinguishable from the quoted text. If a reply contains a correction you need, retain that context deliberately rather than assuming a later import will reconstruct the conversation.

Pricing, free access and plan checks

The personal web-app setup page describes free personal use and collaboration. The current pricing page lists Free core annotation and private groups, with separate institutional packages for LMS integration and additional services. Confirm the institutional arrangement for a course rather than assuming a personal account includes LMS administration, analytics or grading features. No universal institutional price or seat entitlement is quoted here.

Confirm billing period, renewal terms, limits and regional availability on the provider’s current plan page before paying.

Sources and research notes

This guide synthesizes official product information with our editorial assessment of academic use. Suggested exercises are examples you can repeat; they are not results of tests we performed. We do not infer accuracy from a provider’s marketing claims.

1. Hypothesis: personal web-app setup and supported extension route
2. Hypothesis: highlights, annotations, page notes and discussion basics
3. Hypothesis: visibility in the web app
4. Hypothesis: creating a private group and membership invitation
5. Hypothesis: recovering PDF annotations in their source context
6. Hypothesis: export formats, import authorship and reply limitations
7. Hypothesis: course groups and private annotations in LMS assignments
8. Hypothesis: Free core annotation and institutional packages
9. Hypothesis: locally saved PDFs, selectable text and file access

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