There are necessary steps to follow and understand before you dive into a complicated text. Annotating what you read helps you better understand the text. Critical reading is probably one of the most important parts in the process of writing a paper. As I learned in my English Class, annotating the readings and acknowledging that the readings is hard is the first step in writing a good paper. In Susan Gilroy’s “Interrogating Text: 6 Reading Habits to Develop in Your First Year at Harvard” She discusses the how annotating can be crucial when reading critically. She states that “annotating puts you actively and immediately in a ‘dialogue’ with an author and the issues and ideas you encounter in a written text.” At the beginning of the semester I found myself underlining most of the text without really analyzing or stating what I think about what I’m reading. Before this course annotating was just following along with the text. Now, I learned how annotating allows you to really connect to the text, implicitly and explicitly. It allows you to have a conversation with the text. You can ask questions, challenge ideas, agree or disagree. This allows the reader, as Gilroy shows, to have an “ongoing conversation with yourself as you move through the text and to record what that encounter was like for you.” The steps in my annotation process are 1. look for the author’s argument. What is the overall point the author wants to make, and engage in his argument because it will help with my own point on the issue. 2. Highlighting and marking key terms, concepts, and ideas. I try and mark where the quotes are because it indicates where an author might introduce a new thought or idea. This step also helps me locate back to the text of where the ideas were.3. Ask questions about the paper. When talking about ideas I don’t understand, Gilroy adds, “Analyzing adds an evaluative component to the summarizing process.” Asking question such as “What is the writer asserting” can help with acknowledging what you don’t understand. 4. Marking words, I don’t understand, and information I might need again when talking about the facts of the paper. 5. Summarize key points after each paragraph or paper. This step helps me map out what I was thinking and helps me comprehend the essay better, as with locating the argument. It’s vital to use annotating when reading because it allows you to comprehend the paper clearer while also communicating your thoughts on the paper. Overall, I use annotating to, as Gilroy puts it, “interrogate” readings to get the most information and thoughts about as possible whether it’s implicit or explicit.
