Here are some of my pages that I annotated throughout the semester. I’ll usually read the text once to begin to understand the scope of the essay as a whole, trying to underline key points or ideas I like. The second time I read I’ll go back and react naturally as I would if I was in a conversation with the author. Sometimes I’ll draw little pictures or make a pattern on the page to connect with the idea, but it’s mostly just subtle reactions to the text. As you can see, I tend to stick with underlining for main points, Stars for things to refer back to, circles to isolate a phrase or subject or question, and brackets to summarize a paragraph or set of ideas. A little messy, but it works for me! I really enjoyed learning to annotate, it’s helped a lot with retaining information and actively reading.
