How to annotate your books like i do
i'm writing this because i am bored :)
- a bunch of annotation tabs in a variety of colours (you can buy these on amazon)
- a pencil (preferably tiny so it's not always in your way, but that's up to you.)
- no pens. too permanent and they bleed
- no highlighters, colour pens, or colour pencils
- a pencil hook holder thing that you attach to the plastic flat thing that your annotation tabs are on and put your pencil through. compact. keeps all your stuff together when you're not using the pencil
- a drink: optional, and unrelated.
choose colours that match your book. I usually pick out 5 based on intuition. This is how i make my key:
- the darkest colour is for sad/ horrifying/ basically wtf moments
- i always have one for quotes
- i sometimes have one for fun fact; depends on the book
- i like to have a tab that i label as "hm" which basically means "ooh interesting idea proposed here" (not all books will let me have this tab. like a fantasy book wouldnt have this tab, but a dystopian book would. i love it when books allow me to add this tab ^^)
- sometimes i have one for beautiful descriptions and writing
- i have one for cool protagonist moments
- i have another for 'cool character moments: side characters' (i only give side characters their own tab if i find that i am very attached to them. like i was reading the poppy war, and i was bookmarking kitay moments alot so i decided to give him his own colour)
honestly, i do alot of this based on my intuition, and i like to adapt it as i go along
also here are some more general facts abt my annotation habits:
- i usually leave space in my annotation key because half way through the story i will probably add more to the key
- i don't believe in having a tab for plot points. i'd much rather write my thoughts on foreshadowing and plot theories in the margins of the book with my pencil. i see no need to give it a tab
- my pencil is everything. i try to use pencil to express my thoughts whenever i can. i only tab when i really loved a scene or line and feel that my future self would want to easily flip to it
- i don't force myself to be articulate in my written annotations cus there's no space to be. most of the time i just wrote lol, aw, draw a skull, draw a straight lined face, or draw a crying face so that my future self can see what i was feeling when reading it
- i don't like underlining a whole paragraph, i feel like it looks clunky. so instead i draw a bracket like this [ in the margine so it draws my attention to that entire paragraph and future me will know that i found that entire paragraph to be interesting
- my lines are messy, and i love it. it breaks my reading rhythm to bust out a ruler and meticulously rule my lines, i just wing it and move on
- usually, in my annotation key, to start with, there are no tabs for ships. i usually add that in later on if there is any that i care about. if there is romance that i don't care about then i simply won't add a tab.
my annotation experience is very personal and it's done for my future self, or anyone that would like to see my personal thoughts on the story.
i don't care to annotate in a logical way. i won't make tabs for every main character or every plot device or every romance ship. that makes me feel like i'm shallowly categorizing the scenes in the book... ykwim?
- ooh also, by the end of the book, if i find that i am head over heels in love with it, i'll usually go back and draw on any blank space i can find (i try to draw the scene that is happening)
btw none of these photos are mine
thanks for coming to my ted talk
