As I progress as a writer, I have had an open mind and learned many new techniques. Learning how to correctly annotate includes understanding what information is and isn’t vitally important. Annotating allows readers to critical thinking, connect with the reading and deepen their understanding. After revisiting my early work, I noticed that it was very basic annotations but as the semester went on, they became more personal. In the first essay I annotated with lots of surface level connections. I didn’t think critically and wrote comments like: “that’s true” or kind of just restating what it’s saying. But looking back at my more recent annotations I went deeper into context. I wrote comments about things that I connected with which also led me to have questions. Critical thinking is an important aspect to annotating as it allows us to look deeper in the context and connect ideas. I also didn’t highlight unnecessary information like I did in my first annotations. I highlighted information and quotes that have meaning and couldn’t be said any other way. By doing all of these things it leads the reader to a clearer understanding of the message behind the reading or even their own interpretation of it. The most important part of understanding how to become a better annotator is to focus on the main points, arguments, questions I have, and connections.
