HOW TO ANNOTATE LIKE A PRO
As a connoisseur of sticky notes, highlighter pens and poetic journals, I believe that annotating is my primal field of expertise.
What was the last book that you read just for a traction of muse and pleasure? Do you remember at least five quotes of that book which really moved you or pushed you out of your comfy disposition? To answer this question simply, you would have to annotate your reads.
Whether it’s Baby Shoes by Hemingway or Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace; reading to leave afternoon blues or for a college assignment, Annotation is an excellent tool to retain all the important bibliophilic juices.
Before we jump start to 101 of Annotation in three-finger sandwiches, let’s make a discovery call — what is annotation? Are you aware of a Bullet Journal? Annotation is simply a bullet journal for readers — creating an analysis layout to the book you are reading by simply highlighting the best lines or quotes and adding your thoughts to the text.
Let’s say you are reading The Hunger Games- a dystopian series with multiple “characterization temperament” and strong derivatives of mythology and statements of moral complexities. You will need to keep a track of your favorite scenes, one-liners, or when Katniss impends the perceptible transition in understanding of female protagonist; or the times when you cringe, hated the trajectory of an expected positive ending or simply wanted to drop a word to Suzanne Collins to remind her to bring the series back — Annotation can get you through this passive emotional relationship to your reading session.
And, here’s three quick ways to bring your A-game:
1.) IMAGING
As a hardcore fan of Literary Criticism and flashcards, I have always used this hack to instill a great memory of whatever I would be reading for my exams. And you bet that one major contribution to a literature student in an unpredictable university life was to have hands-on interpretations ready for the vast amount of academic texts.
So as the maturity of being a reader evolved myself into meeting the deadlines, Annotation secured my disposition to not go unhinged into the fragile momentum of self-learning.
And, the first step I mastered was Imaging : basically, interacting with the book with its flow of story, participating through the narratives and dialogues, deconstructing the background and reproducing a set of interpretations which can bring closure or conclusion to important elements of text.
I would, then, throw in some sticky notes and jot down the points I have deduced from Imaging. A more practical approach to Imaging is to thread an anecdote to the author of a book you are fond of! For Imaging, it is important to pen down the influence of that book and then secrete an evenly distributed set of ideas which reflects your perception.
2.) SET THE GROUND RULES
If you are a beginner at annotation, you need to lay some groundwork on how you are going to approach the text. Get highlighter pens in (almost) three colors and assign each of the colors a peculiar expression to represent — red- sadness/tragedy; green-important facts, yellow-interesting facts.
You can also use colorful tabs to represent the expressions and use sticky notes to record your thoughts. Let’s say Page 345 of The Mayor of Casterbridge slithers into your mind to a pandiculation of darkness just as you realize the death of protagonist, leading onto the horizon of closure you would have dodged staking your life : now this is the kind of scene you’d like to remember. One of the many similar scenes or passages that you’d like for your grandkids to know when they first hold your annotated books can be saved for future revisits using color tabs.
3.) CREATE YOUR OWN LANGUAGE
So now that you have reflected and tabbed your text, you are going to be willing to start using an even simpler way out to your favorite books. Although putting your thoughts on sticky notes is prominent, you can make a quick time-saver for yourself without compromising your productivity.
What would be you and your best friend’s code word if you are stuck in an awkward situation in a crowded room? Or, how would you share your emoticon rollercoaster about your day?
Annotation is booklovers’ secret language. Treat your book as your best friend and come up with your own secret handshake, code words, etc. to express disdain, confusion, happiness, jealousy. Symbols like asterisk and exclamation marks can show confusing lines or surprising story curves, respectively.
Even underlining is a great tool to remember the favorite quotes or a dialogue which you would like to throw a fit in with, when some Dr. Ross Geller is getting on your “Phoebe Buffay’s nerves”.
Remember to utilize your intuition as you keep getting better in the art of Annotation, and improve your speed as you go.
But, more importantly, remember to have fun creating your own biblio-billboard!
