Before this course, I couldn’t have told you what my annotating techniques are, let alone what annotating a text even meant. Thankfully, I have developed some pretty strong skills in this area throughout the semester. Although we have annotated several pieces of writing over the courses of the semester, the piece that I felt the most strongly connected to was Animals Like us, by Hal Herzog. When we were first given this piece of writing, we were told to identify the issues and tensions we found while reading. So, that was how I began my annotation and informal responding process. As I read through, I marked up where I noticed any issues beginning to form. In the first section, the main issue was what do we consider an animal? I took notes about how the woman, Judith Black, considered herself a vegetarian for many years even though she still ate fish regularly. Personally, I find highlighters incredibly useful and have made it very easy to make the important parts stand out in a text. I used pencil on the margins next to the highlighter, however, so that I was actually able to read the notes I had taken. I personally like to write down any questions I have about what I may have just read. I also like to circle any words I’ve never seen before. I think it’s important to not highlight every single word because that is pointless, I need to only highlight the important parts. In Susan Gilroy’s writing piece, “Interrogating Texts,” I really liked the way she compared annotating texts as having a talk with yourself about what you’re reading. She writes, “It’s also a way to have an ongoing conversation with yourself as you move through the text and to record what that encounter was like for you.” I feel like this is a great way of putting it. Overall, I have found that active, critical reading is a very useful skill to have, especially if you’re going to have to write a paper on the reading shortly afterward.
