As a student that is told to annotate articles and read pages upon pages in most of my classes, it can be hard to define what annotating really looks like. I personally read the article, and as I go through line by line I wrote down what my brain is basically thinking about what the author is trying to say. When I annotate each lin I circle words that I don’t understand. I underline phrases and points the author is trying to make to make it easier for me to incorporate quotes into my essay. That is all that annotating meant to me when I started school here. I did not know what else to do besides underline and circle words and phrases. I can honestly say this class has taught me a lot especially when it comes to annotating. I learned how to annotate articles and readings correctly. Although it is important to circle and underline when annotating that is not the only thing you are supposed to do. Good annotating looks like the page is full of writing from a pen. I learned that when annotating it is important to make connection to yourself, the world, and other authors. It is a good idea to make connections when reading, because it helps you retain the information more and gives you something to remember the information by. Not only did I learn how to make connections, but I learned what not to underline and what to underline. Not everything is important or needs a lot of attention, there are some lines in articles that do not need to be underlined. Knowing what information to annotate is important, because it helps you with other skills like note taking which is part of annotating. I also learned how to pick out good information and quotes. This class taught me a lot of things, but incorporating quotes correctly and clearly into my essay really helped me as a writer. Another thing I never realized was a smart idea while riding along was to ask questions on your paper. It’s important to write down the questions you have as you read and that way you can either ask or look up your question later. Analyzing each article in this class definitely helped me become a better writer, but it helped me more with becoming an active and critical reader.
