How often do you highlight, underline, or write in your textbooks?

If you’ve ever purchased a used book that was (generously) highlighted by its previous owner, you may think of marking up textbooks as distracting or annoying.  However, when done properly marking up a textbook (also known as annotation) can be an effective active reading technique, and reviewing annotations you created while reading is a great study tool.

How to annotate in 5 easy steps.

1) choose a section of the textbook to read actively (also known as ‘close reading’) – if you’ve been assigned a full chapter, focus on a smaller section.

2) look at any headings, titles or other emphasized words and ask yourself what you think the section is going to teach you.  For example, if you were annotating this blog post you might look at the title and ask “what is annotation?” or “how would I use annotation to study?” You may choose to write this question in the margin or near the heading.

3) read through the passage slowly, identifying and underlining main ideas, circling key words, making connections between ideas, and noting anything you don’t understand.   Some annotation guides suggest writing in the margins during the first reading and underlining during the second, the order of actions isn’t as important as ensuring you are marking key ideas (not whole paragraphs or pages) and making useful notes to yourself in the margins.

4) look over the material, what types of questions might your professor ask about the information in this section?  Can you see any connections to previous material? Are any of the course objectives or learning outcomes (found in the syllabus) addressed?  Note these questions in the margins.

5) later, either  during the review/recall stage of a SQ3R reading method, while studying for a quiz or exam, or looking for information for a discussion board post or paper, look over your annotations.  Can you answer the questions you created?  Just glancing at the underlined and circled key ideas can you explain the topic in more depth without rereading the whole section?

Many proponents of annotation actually discourage the use of highlighters and encourage students to annotate with a fine tip pen (ball point is better than gel if the pages are thin).  What tools and methods you choose are up to you, and annotation is a very individualized technique.

Not sure annotation is for you? 

Concerned about book value?  It can be intimidating or even feel ‘wrong’ somehow to write in a book that cost you more than you like to think about…and you may be worried about resale value of your book.  This is valid, marked up books can sell for less than ‘like new’ online, but if marking up a book results in more information being learned and retained in a course that has a value as well…and some students actually intentionally purchased marked up books with the hope that it will have been done well and be useful to guide their own learning focus.

Worried it will take too much time?  By actively reading and turning the margins of your textbook into an instant study guide you should actually reduce the amount of time needed for re-reading or outlining in preparation for exams.  Initially annotation will be slow and add time to your reading, but just like any skill you will become more proficient with time and consistent practice.

Still not quite sure what annotation really looks like in action? To see a demonstration of annotation, check out this quick 4 minute video from Southwestern Michigan College, or search for many more examples available on YouTube.