3 How do I Annotate?

Annotating is a deliberate interaction with the text. It means reading critically and making notes. These notes can be questions, reactions, reminders, and ideas for discussing or writing in the margins or between the lines. Keeping a record of ideas as they occur to you will help prepare you to discuss the reading with your classmates and eventually to write about it.

Why?

Annotating a text you are reading gives you a quick reference guide for future use. Rather than having to re-read the article or PDF each time you return to it for information, you can rely on the quick reference points you have highlighted or the notes and comments you have made in the margins. This is a very useful skill when preparing assessments, synthesizing sources, and comparing and contrasting key concepts and ideas across different academic texts. When you are annotating a reading you are actively engaging with the text and will therefore read it more closely. Annotation also gives you the opportunity to add your own thoughts and comments, raise questions for further investigation, and challenge ideas within the text.

When?

After you have skimmed and scanned the text, for an overall understanding of its key ideas, you should complete a more in-depth reading if you intend to use the text for an assessment, to gain a deeper understanding of the topic, or to engage with the text for class preparation. Even while completing the initial skimming and scanning, you may want to mark key headings, sub-headings, concepts, or words. It is beneficial to go back over the text and add additional notes and comments as your understanding increases, specifically if you are comparing and contrasting different texts (journal articles, book chapters) about the same topic.

How?

While the method generally comes down to personal preference, here are some basic guidelines:

• Keep your annotations brief – use single words or brief phrases, rather than whole sentences.
• Use different colored highlighters to signify different concepts. However, use highlighting very sparingly. Excessive highlighting generates a colorful page where nothing stands out, which is the point of highlighting in the first place.
• Circle or mark words you are unfamiliar with and use a dictionary to understand their meaning and use. This will have the added benefit of increasing your academic vocabulary.

Example Video of Annotating: