When I am annotating a text, the first thing I do is read over the text once very briefly, practically skimming it to get a feel of what it is about and how I can approach my annotations. Generally, I underline and highlight words that I do not know the meanings of or those that caught my eye the first time around. When reading the transcript for Carol Dweck’s TED Talk, I highlighted phrases that I thought went merely passed what she was aiming to depict, also those that really solidified her argument. With phrases such as “tyranny of now”, I would write down what she was implying in everyday language to make it easier to understand when looking back at it. My annotations for this text were mostly responses to her comments, either adding additional notes for what she said or writing down questions I had in response to what she said. I highlight words and phrases that stand out to me such as “inevitable” or “So the native kids outdid the Microsoft kids” in a way to reassure my understanding of the text. For this text, I found myself reacting to the text by asking rhetorical questions or just commenting on what she was saying through my annotations.
“Superman and Me” by Sherman Alexie was something that I really enjoyed reading through. My first comment was how the article was published before I was born but I came back to it to mention how despite the date, the topic still seems to be relevant today. My annotations for this article were all over the place but they all have one thing in common: drawing emphasis to the main aspects of the article (at least the ones I think to be). I highlight important time frames in the article, such as when he talks about his identity or words that are critically placed throughout. I don’t use sticky notes often in my writing because it covers the text and I just prefer writing on the text itself but when I am annotating a piece of writing that is not mine, that is when I turn to sticky notes for my annotations. In this article, I also wrote a lot of side comments to the stuff he wrote to further clarify what he was saying; in addition, I also wrote down rhetorical questions in response to the text. I also highlight and comment on certain literary techniques that authors often deploy in their writing: for example, in this text I commented on the parallelism and anaphora Alexie incorporated. I also circle words that are key to the writing such as “I suppose” or “but”.
I also have a habit of adding hearts next to phrases that I find to be very striking and perfectly written. I have done this a lot through my annotations and I use it as a means of showing how I understand the writing and the message/meaning behind it as well as the claim it is trying to make.
My annotations for both of these texts were fairly similar as it is how I usually annotate any piece of text. I try not to go overboard with the highlighting and just stick to the words and phrases that are critical to the piece. I comment a lot on the side about random things, whether it may be a simple thought or an explanation for what I believe the author may be trying to say. Overall, I use my annotations to help guide me through the reading and confirm to myself that I have understood the main concepts of the writing the author was trying to execute.
