Scribd
Upload
44 views

Text Annotation Guide

The document provides guidance on how to actively annotate texts through highlighting and note-taking. It recommends summarizing and paraphrasing passages, annotating key quotations by explaining their importance, marking points of confusion with question marks, defining unfamiliar words, asking your own questions, making connections to other texts or personal experiences, observing the author's style and use of literary devices, and taking note of the overall structure. Common annotation symbols are also listed.

Uploaded by

Jennifer Brodsky
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
44 views

Text Annotation Guide

The document provides guidance on how to actively annotate texts through highlighting and note-taking. It recommends summarizing and paraphrasing passages, annotating key quotations by explaining their importance, marking points of confusion with question marks, defining unfamiliar words, asking your own questions, making connections to other texts or personal experiences, observing the author's style and use of literary devices, and taking note of the overall structure. Common annotation symbols are also listed.

Uploaded by

Jennifer Brodsky
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 4

BespokeClassroom.

com
Text Annotation Guide
Highlighting and annotating is a key skill for actively reading and engaging with any text—whether it’s a piece of
nonfiction, a novel, a short story, a newspaper article, or a critical reading passage. Active reading forces you to
interact with the text in a way that helps you to keep ideas organized and to identify where in the text you lose
comprehension. As you read, follow these steps for highlighting and annotating.

==========================================================

1. Summarize & Paraphrase


• Summarize body paragraphs or pages in essays or articles. Summarize chapters in books or stanzas in
poems.
• Paraphrase key quotations by writing them in your own words.
• This will enable you to go back and analyze structure and also find textual evidence for discussion &
writing.
• This also helps to clarify your comprehension. You can’t analyze a text if you don’t know what it
literally says.

2. Annotate Key Quotations


• What is a “key” quotation? A quote that pinpoints a thesis statement, definition, conclusion, an
important literary element, or idea central to the argument is a “key” quotation.
• But don’t stop there! Write a note in the margin about that quotation. Explain why you think that quote
is important.

3. Annotate Where you Become Confused


• Put question marks next to any part of the text that confuses you for any reason.
• These are places where comprehension begins to break down, and these are the exact pages/ lines/
stanzas/ paragraphs that you need to discuss with your groups/ teacher/ class in order to clarify
comprehension; otherwise, you could end up with a misinterpretation of the piece or just completely
lost.

4. Identify New Vocabulary


• Circle any words you do not know & define them in the margins.
• The ONLY way to truly acquire new vocabulary is to READ ACTIVELY! This means, you MUST pay
attention to foreign words in a text and NOT be LAZY about looking them up.
• Also, consider writing synonyms and antonyms in the margins to help you remember the word’s
meaning.

BespokeClassroom.com
5. Ask Your Own Questions
• As you are reading, you may want to know MORE about something mentioned in the text! (“Who is
Cain?”) Or, you may even DISAGREE with what the author is stating (“But what about…?”/ “How can
that be?”).
• Formulate your own questions and write them in the margins.

6. Make Connections
• As you are reading, be thinking of connections from text to text (does the reading remind you of
something else you’ve read?), text to world (does the reading remind you of something that’s happened
in the world?), and text to self (does the reading remind you of something from your life?).
• Write connection notes in the margins—“This reminds me of…”

7. Observe the Author’s Style


• Authors use stylistic devices to communicate a theme or central idea. These stylistic devices include
literary elements such as characterization, theme, setting, conflict, etc.; literary techniques such as irony,
metaphor, symbolism, allusion, etc.; rhetorical devices such as parallel structure, anaphora, repetition,
etc.; and punctuation such as a dash, series of questions, caesura, etc.
• Circle or underline any devices that stand out as important to the author’s style. Then annotate why the
device is important to the meaning of the text.

8. Take Note of the Text’s Structure


• Make annotations about how the writing is organized.
• Locate the thesis statement or main idea.
• Look for transition words that organize the ideas.
• Look for a structure such as cause/ effect—question/ answer.
• Look for the parts of the plot such as exposition and climax.
• Make any relevant notations about the structure and how the piece is organized.

====================================================================
COMMON Annotation Symbols

Symbol What it Means

? I am confused.
! I am shocked! I am surprised! Huge moment!
Such a great point!
> This reminds me of…
* This is important.
New vocabulary word

BespokeClassroom.com

You might also like