Annotating helps capture and record your responses to a text and answer the basic question “What is this text about?” As you annotate, you take notes—you jot down questions and reactions in the margins of the text or on electronic or paper sticky notes. You might circle or underline the author’s main points. Or you might develop your own system of annotating by placing question marks or asterisks by the text’s thesis or major pieces of evidence. If the text you are annotating is in an electronic file, you can use a comment tool or a feature such as Microsoft Word’s Track Changes.

As you annotate and think about a text, you are starting to write about it. Responding with notes and observations helps you frame what you want to say about the author’s ideas or questions.

On a second or third reading, you may notice contradictions—statements the author makes that, put side-by-side, just don’t seem to make sense—or surprising insights that may lead to further investigation. Each rereading will raise new questions and lead to a better understanding of the text.

The example shows how one student, Emilia Sanchez, annotated an article from CQ Researcher, a newsletter about social and political issues.