ACTIVE READING
LEARNING OUTCOME 3
Annotating is a good way to start thinking about the text more, and gives you an opportunity to read your thoughts later on. When I’m reading I usually will begin by highlighting what I think is important. This is usually ideas I think might be essential, especially ideas that could be helpful in my essay. I also highlight terms and phrases that seem important. I also will highlight certain quotes that I’ll want to go back and find later for my essay. I always ask questions and write things I don’t agree with. Although, mostly during annotating I just write my ideas about certain things, and how the text makes me feel. For example in Jeffrey Scheuer’s article “Critical Thinking and the Liberal Arts” I commented, “I agree with this, I feel like I have been hearing these exact ideas.” In this example I just added an area that I agreed with Scheuer. I think annotating for me is beneficial to gather some of my thoughts, and to remember which passages are important. When text is confusing or doesn’t make sense to me sometimes I will rewrite it in words that are easier to understand. I like to voice my opinion, and disagree with the author. For example in the Scheuer article for I annotated “I don’t think a general understanding of knowledge is better than mastering more specific skills in today’s society”. This was completely opposing the author’s viewpoint that broader, liberal education is more beneficial.
What I need to work on is putting more meaningful comments in my annotations. I think I rely too heavily on just highlighting text. In the moment I’m highlight the paper I know exactly why it was important but a few days later it usually isn’t so obvious. I think if I began analyzing with more of a focus it could help. As Susan Gilroy suggests, using annotation to pick apart every piece of the writing and summarizing it. This would definitely help me when I come back to the writing and have to reread certain sections because of a lack of annotation.
Examples of homework with annotation:
