Tips on how to properly annotate a book/novel? I’ve seen pics all over tumblr and I’d love to know how to :)!!
Hi anon! Thank you for asking, I've done my best to write it out below 🖤
First of all, ask yourself why you are annotating. It may be for academics, personal use, or to share with someone. There isn’t one most correct annotating style! I annotate differently when it’s for college, versus for my personal enjoyment, versus when I’m annotating a book as a gift for someone else. Feel free to experiment and find out what works best for you in a variety of situations.
Things you will need might like to have…
a pencil or pen (play around with colors!)
a little ruler (very optional)
sticky notes (i like to have different sizes and colors)
tabs (can be found cheap in diff. styles and material)
The most important step is to start. Annotating still feels taboo to some people. Please remember: your thoughts and feelings don’t have to be “good enough” to justify annotation. You aren’t “ruining” a book, you’re augmenting it. Think of the millions of copies there are of this book… yours is now unique. Books go unsold in stores, end up in landfills, all the time. Not only have you fulfilled this book’s purpose by reading it, you have gone far and beyond to get intimate with the author’s words, conspire with this book, and join the author in the creative process. No matter how many words you misspell or cross out, how “bad” your handwriting is, how “dumb” your comments are… they are worth, at the very least, the paper they are written on. Yes, even if that paper already has words on it.
Tabbing; if you’re still not over your reservations about writing in your books, that’s okay! Using tabs is a fairly good way to keep track of the parts of the book you loved or despised, or have questions about, etc. Just remember that you from a year from now might not know exactly what the tab is keeping track of… you may want to augment with sticky notes if you want future you (or someone else!) to know exactly what made you feel something, and how it made you feel.
Sticky notes; sticky notes are a great way to add comments to pages you’ve tabbed. There usually isn’t much margin space for writing comments, especially if you’d like to add in depth thoughts. With sticky notes, you can place them so that future you can just lift them to keep reading (because they will likely obstruct the text) and they are removable!
PERMANENT (FOR THE MOST PART)
Underlining; if you really want to keep track of exact sentences and even words, I highly recommend underlining! You can do it in pencil if you’re still worried about making “mistakes,” however unless you realistically see yourself going through, page by page, erasing all your lines, I would consider this somewhat permanent. So in my opinion, if you’re going to underline, just commit and use your favored writing implement! Also, you can use a ruler (or anything with a straight edge) for straighter lines.
Highlighting; similar to underlining! You can also use different colors, for that, see the section on color coding.
Marginalia; like sticky notes, but more permanent and (usually) less space for writing. I rarely write in the margins, even though I love this word and the history of marginalia. I mostly use sticky notes for the larger writing space.
I love, love, love to color code. The downside is that you need many more tabs and highlighters and pens that you would without doing this. However, the upside is that meaning is added to everything you do. For example, I could underline something in Dead Poets Society, and all future-me might see is that that line meant something… However, if I underlined in green, for example, and had an annotation key, then every time future-me sees green she’ll know the past-me thought this was related to life and death. ALWAYS have a key if you color code. Your chosen colors might be perfectly sensible to you now, but future-you or someone else might just be lost without one.
ALWAYS HAVE A KEY! If you use symbols, colors, anything that has meaning… write down the symbol and it’s meaning IN THE BOOK so you will never be wondering what the hell blue, or purple, or this star, or daisy, or skull means.
Always try to leave some indication of what any form of annotation meant. This can be through color coding, or a little heart, a sad face, a comment etc. You want there to be meaning, otherwise all you’re saying is “this is important!” but not why.
Start with annotating secondhand books, and always remember you can buy a new copy of most books, but unless you start annotating, your special edition is missing from the world.
WHAT TO WRITE/UNDERLINE/TAB?
Literally anything! But here are some ideas:
Track themes throughout a book (love, death, gender, etc).
Underline things that make you think or feel, or both, and then write down what you thought or felt.
Make a playlist for the book and add it to the beginning of the book, or of each chapter, feel free to write these on sticky notes.
Suggest books like the one you're annotating! You can add this on the last page or on a sticky note, etc. This is great if you're gifting a book.
But really... anything you add to a book is worth writing down. Annotating makes you read closely and engages your critical thinking. It's a great skill to practice.
Thanks for asking, and lots of love!
turnnoffyourmind
dailybridgerton
blakekathryn
dededos
prguitarman
