For example, does the author offer examples relating to theories of motivation that you’re studying in a psychology class? Note idea linkages between this text and key concepts or theories of a discipline.Note idea linkages between this text and another text.Note the writer’s tone-straightforward, sarcastic, sincere, witty-and how it influences the ideas presented.Note repeated words or phrases it’s likely that such emphasis relates to a key concept or main idea.This is especially important if you’re reading and annotating a text intended to persuade the reader to a particular point of view, as it allows you to clarify and evaluate the author’s line of reasoning. Note important transition words that show a shift in thought transitions show how the author is linking ideas.Summarize a lengthy section of a text to extract the main ideas–again in your own words.Paraphrase a difficult passage by putting it into your own words.Note any biases unstated assumptions (your own included).These questions generally fall into two different categories, to clarify meaning and to evaluate what you’ve read. Record questions you have about what you are reading.Write a reminder to look up something – an unknown word, a difficult concept, or a related idea that occurred to you.Link a concept in the text to your own experience.Note your agreement or disagreement with an idea in the text.Mark places that seem important, interesting, and/or confusing.In either case, phrase that main idea in your own words. Mark the thesis or main idea sentence, if there is one in the text.Instead, there are different types of annotations that you may make, depending on the particular text. There’s no single formula for annotating a text. You’ll find that you’re annotating differently in different texts, depending on your background knowledge of the topic, your own ease with reading the text, and the type of text, among other variables. The following video offers a brief, clear example of annotating a text. Much academic work in college is intended to get you to offer your own, informed thoughts (as opposed to simple recall and regurgitation of information) annotating a text helps you capture key personal, analytical insights as you read. Annotations such as these will be useful when you’re asked to respond to a text through reacting, applying, analyzing, and synthesizing, since these types of annotations record your own thoughts. Annotation provides a record of your deeper questions and thoughts as you read, insights related to analyzing, interpreting, and going beyond the text into related issues.You also leave behind a set of notes that can help you find key information the next time you need to refer to that text. Annotation increases your odds of remembering what you’ve read, because you write those annotations in your own words, making the information your own.This is called “monitoring comprehension.”

If not, you can immediately re-read or seek additional information to improve your understanding. By pausing to reflect as you read, annotating a text helps you figure out if you’re understanding what you’re reading. While it may take more time up front as you read, annotating while you read can help you avoid having to re-read passages in order to get the meaning. Annotation ultimately saves reading time.

There are a number of reasons to annotate a text: Annotation is a form of active involvement with a text. Conversation works best when people are active participants. Your thought processes would probably close down and you would not engage in thinking about larger meanings related to the topic. You wouldn’t be able to get clarification or ask questions. You wouldn’t sit passively while the author talked at you. Think of annotating a text in terms of having a conversation with the author in real time. By reading carefully and pausing to reflect upon, mark up, and add notes to a text as you read, you can greatly improve your understanding of that text. The main thing to remember is that annotation is at the core of active reading. You may annotate in different formats, either in the margins of the text or in a separate notepad or document. Annotating may occur on a first or second reading of the text, depending on the text’s difficulty or length. As you annotate, you may combine a number of reading strategies-predicting, questioning, dealing with patterns and main ideas, analyzing information-as you physically respond to a text by recording your thoughts.

Annotating literally means taking notes within the text as you read.

Annotate an article