#annotate annotate annotate

hey!! for me personally, annotation is a way to enhance my understanding of a book i’m required to read for school. for ap english classes especially, it’s good that you have a good understanding of what you’re reading because you might have to use your knowledge of the book for an essay question on the ap exam. in class we also have to write prose analysis essays and take quizzes on the information we’ve read; we’re allowed to use our books, and if i have all the important information already highlighted or marked it’s easier for me to flip through & find it.

hey! i have a post detailing how i annotate here. =)

determining what’s important can be a little tricky as you’re first reading the piece, but as you continue to read and understand the story and where it’s heading, it’ll become more natural. 

hi, anon! thank you so much for asking, as annotating is a slight obsession of mine, and i really, really like talking about it.

i use a pen and the occasional post-it for my annotating, but most predominately highlighters, using the following color code which has sort of evolved over time:

pink for key plot details, or anything that seems significant  to the development of the story, ranging from action to characters’ thoughts & feelings

yellow for characters & their characteristics, whether that be physical appearance, details from a character’s past, or their nature in general (this tends to be incredibly helpful if you have to go back & refer to specifics about any character)

green for literary devices (simile, metaphor, foreshadowing, irony, etc)

blue for themes and repeating symbols (again helpful for future referencing)

orange for unknown vocabulary; i’ll usually go back in after finishing a chapter or section & define the word(s) in the margin

and purple for quotes that i like because i’m a nerd & keep them in a notebook of mine

sometimes i underline with the highlighters instead of straight up actually highlighting if i find whatever i’m highlighting less significant; i also underline with the pen too if something seems important but not important enough to bust a highlighter open for. it’s all kind of arbitrary actually.

i don’t use a ton of post-its really unless i feel like a list or a super long note is in order. (for example, when i read in cold blood over the summer for school, i used post-its to keep track of things like suspects and clues and eventually witnesses during the trial.)

annotating is really all trial & error and figuring out what sort of system works best for you. it’s also important to not get so caught up on making everything color coded & pretty that you lose sight of the text you’re working with. :) -laur