An effective active reading technique involves annotating or taking notes. When actively reading it is important to record in writing the major information and ideas in a text. You might choose to take these notes in the margins of the text itself (which is called annotating), in a notebook, or on separate sheets of paper.
Regardless of where you write them, notes offer two important benefits:
- First of all, good notes often increase comprehension of the text. Taking notes requires you to think more about what you are reading, so you wind up understanding it better.
- Second, writing down information and ideas helps you to better remember the information. For many people, taking the extra time to hand-write the main points helps implant them in their memory more securely.
Good notes always begin with highlighting or underlining main ideas or key terms. When you write notes, they might take one or more of the following forms:
- A list of the main ideas in all of the paragraphs. Put these ideas in your own words and condense them whenever possible. Do not try to include all of the details, just the most important points.
- A summary of the chapter or article. In your own words, write a paragraph or two describing the main ideas of the selection.
- An outline. Outlines not only list the major and minor details of a reading selection, but they also reveal the relationships among those details. You can use a Roman numeral outline, but the notes are usually for your eyes only, so you could also adopt or create a more informal system. No matter what kind of outline you use, though, make sure it clearly demonstrates the general and specific relationships among the ideas.
Watch this short video to get an overview of annotation:
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Content adapted from the open course titled “Open Now Developmental English” authored by Cengage Learning, licensed under a CC BY 4.0 license.
Video Content
“Annotating a Text – Quick Guide” by mrgranito