An annotation is an article that summarizes the evolution of a very specific legal concept in a concise and precise fashion.
The range and number of citations is always strongly representative but not always guaranteed to be completely comprehensive.
Since the annotations are published in the order the leading cases were decided, there are various finding aids.
West's ALR Digest now follows the classification system of the West American Digest System, and includes headnotes for the reported cases, as well as references to the annotations.
A reader may also use the references in American Jurisprudence, Corpus Juris Secundum, and state encyclopedias published by Thomson West to find a more in-depth discussion in ALR.