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Annotating quite simply is about drawing, circling, highlighting, underlying, or writing

notes on the reading itself. It can be done hardcopy or digitally.

HERE is a reading about neuroplasticity that has been annotated as an exemplar.

Note that key definitions are highlighted in case one needs to copy and paste the quote
into an essay or research paper. Sometimes, it's also a good idea to circle a heading to
a part of the article one thinks has an interesting idea in it.

When reading academic texts, however, there is an ever-present temptation to highlight

too much. However, if you highlight too much, then you are not engaging your critical
thinking faculties – you are not actively discriminating between important and
unimportant ideas in your text. As Dave Ellis and Debra Dawson point out, "research
has found that excessive highlighting is no more successful a reading strategy than
simply reading the text alone" (Ellis and Dawson, Becoming a Master Student, 7th
Canadian edition, Toronto: Nelson, 2020, p.141).

You can avoid that, however, by intentionally monitoring your understanding of the text
as you read. Remember: plan ("I will read chapter ten in my chemistry textbook
tonight"), monitor ("I understood some of the first five pages of what I've just read, but I
didn't understand everything, especially certain formulas"), and evaluate ("Therefore, I
better review certain formulas, look up related terms, and ask my professor for
clarification").

The point here is that one is not reading passively and highlighting haphazardly and
without choice; one is working with the reading. And don't be afraid to read aloud and
talk to yourself about the reading.

Reading an Academic Text

Academic writing is often structured in a way that is quite different from a blog or
newspaper article. Part of working with academic texts is to first get a sense of how the
work is structured.

To do this you should skim or survey the reading -- just review titles and topics, don't
drill down in the details. An active reader asks questions as they read, so ask:

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What are the main topics?

Are there definitions to make note of?

What evidence does the author cite to support or develop their views?

Once you get a sense of the structure of the text, then you can read in detail, complete
any practice questions, annotate, and highlight important terms or definitions. Finally,
review the chapter and tidy up your notes or practice questions. The key take-away is
that reading well rests upon an appreciation of how the text is organized as well as an
understanding of what the author is saying. Put another way, an active reader reads
with a critical eye towards evaluating what they read and engaging with the author's
argument.

The SQ3R Reading System

How does an active reader do this? There are many active reading strategies out there,
but in class we discussed the SQ3R Reading System.

Recall that SQ3R is an acronym for Survey, Question, Read, Recite, and Review. By
engaging this method when you read your textbooks, you can overcome many of the
difficulties you may encounter when dealing with hard-to-read and hard-to-understand
material.

This strategy for reading and studying provides a framework designed to increase
retention and understanding by encouraging the reader to use each stage of the
reading process (before, during, and after), moving from small details to large ideas and
back again.

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By setting a purpose for the reading, asking questions, taking notes, and reviewing both
notes and text in relation to one another, readers are able to delve more deeply into a
text compared to merely reading or even reading and responding.

(From "What Is SQ3R? A Definition For Teachers," TeachThought, March 8, 2020.)

Augment Reading with Multi-Media

Let's face it, reading can be tiring. What I like to do is mix it up. Here is a metacognitive
moment: how do I usually like to get my information? Do I read newspapers, read blogs,
follow twitter? Do I like videos or Ted Talks opens in new window? I prefer podcasts. So
let's say I have a grammar class and I'm bored with reading the chapter of the textbook
on comma splices.

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Grammar Girl to the Rescue. She has a podcast that also has a transcript. So I can
listen to a short 10 minute audio about comma splices and then look back over her
written transcript for the examples. Once I have a sense of what comma splices are, I
could practice using a worksheet to test my ability to diagnose comma splices. The
point that I am trying to make is to engage with content in many ways to make ideas
stick.

Additional TIP -- Check with our college's library to see if you can get audiobooks for
your commute, or walks, or while working out. The library has ebooks and subscriptions
to some streaming sites you don't have to pay for.

"Reading is an active, imaginative act;

it takes work."
(~Khaled Hosseini, Afghan-American novelist)

"Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body."

(~Joseph Addison, English essayist and poet)

Take Away -- Benefits of Active Reading

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Becoming an Active Reader will Benefit You

Please read through the following PDF that I created around active reading and its
benefits. If you click on the following image, then you can download a copy of the PDF
for future reference.

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