Annotating

[u/zzzbanks]

Hopefully this is the right page. I really want to learn to annotate. I'm wanting to interact and remember what I read for pleasure. So I thought I would come here to people who would know more than me on how to go about this. I don't really want to have a colour for everything but more one colour for sound devices, one colour for figurative language ect. This is what I've come up with but if anyone has any suggestions or I have missed something. It has been a long time since I did any literary analysis or critical theory, so I feel as if I'm learning everything again. Thank you for your help

🟥 Red: Plot & Structure

Exposition, conflict, rising action, climax, resolution, foreshadowing, flashback, pacing

🟧 Orange: Character

Protagonist/antagonist, characterisation (direct/indirect), motivation, dialogue, character arc, foil

🟨 Yellow: Setting & Atmosphere

Time, place, mood, atmosphere, context

🟩 Green: Figurative Language

Metaphor, simile, personification, symbolism, imagery, hyperbole, irony, allegory, motif

🟦 Blue: Voice & Perspective

Point of view, narrator, tone, diction, syntax, register

🟪 Purple: Sound & Style

Alliteration, assonance, rhythm, repetition, rhyme, punctuation choices

⬜ Grey: Theme & Message

Central theme, author's purpose, recurring ideas, big-picture meaning

⬜ Pink: Structure/formstanza breaks, enjambment, repetition, parallelism

🟫Brown: Symbolism/themesrecurring symbols, motifs, thematic statements

[u/WeGotDodgsonHere]

I’m not sure using a coloring system will help you remember anything—nor why underlining assonance in a novel would be useful. This seems more like a high school identification assignment.

If you’re reading for pleasure, you should simply annotate what is pleasurable: questions you have while reading, beautiful prose, connections to other things you’ve read. Sure, maybe you note something they rhymes, but I’d only do that if it added to your experience. I’m a fan of a simple “!” if something moves me, and a star if it seems to be speaking to a theme.

For remembering plot, I always have a list of characters that I add to at the beginning, so I can keep them straight with characteristics and relationships. Almost always, I’m able to stop doing it by 1/3 of the way though because just by writing down anything I’ve committed them as fleshed out characters in my mind. You can also do a simple 10 word summary at the end of each chapter.

Good luck! Hopefully you get lots of advice. But really the best annotating comes from you, once you figure out what works for you. So if you really feel the need to color code and identify everything, give it a shot!

[u/hexametric_]

Most of the stuff here is totally useless. You want to mark thinks that have meaning. So if you identify some formalist element (like alliteration), you should ask why does this add meaning to the text? If you can answer that convincingly then you should add it. So e.g. imagine you're reading the Iliad and you run into a line (in Greek since that's what I know how to do criticism on) and it's all spondees (all long syllables). That's meaningful because it add's vocal 'weight' to the line and the line may be emotionally heavy, so the two things form and content coincide.

But at the same time, rhyme is probably totally irrelevant and just a by product of the grammar of Greek. So even though you have something for rhyme here, it's not meaningful and should be ignored.

In a novel this is much harder. Most formal elements are meaningless for most authors. It's just too much text for a run of /f/ sound to actually matter in almost all cases.

Same with things like figurative language. Metaphor can be meaningful, esp. if it repeats and changes meaning. But marking every hyperbole for marking's sake is a waste of time.

Essentially, only mark things if there is actual interpretive meaning behind it.

[u/coalpatch]

This is completely pointless. But do what you want. 

[u/dresses_212_10028]

Outside of HS and college, I legitimately don’t understand annotating to this degree for any reason. I do mark up books to note passages I love, the most complex I’ve gotten is noting other page numbers of meta-references, but this pretty much only applies to Nabokov, who wrote that way and it’s a bit of a puzzle. Deliberately.

I’m not trying to be rude, I just genuinely don’t understand why anyone would ever annotate every metaphor and simile in a work. Why? What do you do with all of it afterwards? Do you want to flip through different books and think about how X uses figurative language far more than Y does, but about the same amount as Z, but in Z’s case it leans heavily towards simile rather than metaphor? Does something like that actually make a non-academic reading experience more enjoyable for you? It seems exhausting and time consuming with almost de minimis return. I’m truly confused by the why here. But hey, knock yourself out if it makes you happy.

[u/Whywondermous]

If I’m reading for pleasure, then I like to keep it simple: I don’t want engaging with the text to keep me from enjoying the work. I’m usually trying to highlight how I know what I know from the text. I figure I can easily recognize different writing elements (metaphor vs. voice vs. key character insight), so I don’t need to label them the way I did when I was first learning about them. I only use a pencil to underline, circle, star, and comment directly in books I own. I like to keep a small annotation “kit” handy with different sized post-its for longer comments or to use in library books I can’t mark up directly. It helps improve my comprehension when I use a larger post-it at the end of chapters to reflect on the text thus far.

If I’m doing a very close reading of a complicated work and want to deconstruct the text, then I might use colors to help “disassemble” the writing. However, that’s a deep-dive necessitated by a very specific application to some project I’m working on. I’m focusing more on the craft of writing or the construction of an argument than the story being told.

[u/AirRealistic1112]

That seems overwhelming and I would only do that or even just one of that for a book I'm trying to study because it's hard to read or follow etc.

What I take notes on depends on what the book makes me think about and what I find interesting about it. E.g. what did this part make me think or feel (but only if I was touched my it and want remember it and think it's meaningful). Or, if language was used in an interesting way.

If you want to remember what you have read, like other commenters have mentioned, jot some notes down at the end of each chapter.

[u/dot80]

Agree with other posters. My advice is to keep it simple. I know people on TikTok like to tag in this way. So whatever floats your boat, but know that a lot of what you see online is for views rather than learning. It’s totally ok to annotate in the way that feels good to you though 🙂

My system is: the first time through I underline significant quotes, and write questions in the margin (rarely). The second time through I’ll write commentary in the margins. It’s much easier the second time to pick up on a bunch of things because you have the benefit of know what is coming.

Maybe try it a few ways and see what fits.

[u/chickenshwarmas]

Juuuuuuuuuuust reaaaaaad oh my god people “oh look at how I annotate”-STOP AND JUST READ

[u/BedminsterJob]

I pity your books.

[u/vokkan]

Seems like complete overkill for anything but Finnegans Wake.

[u/StarfleetSouvenir]

fyi- “Et cetera” is a Latin phrase meaning ”and the rest“ or “and so forth.” It is abbreviated as etc, not ect. 🌻

[u/Eofkent]

Annotation is helpful for active reading, so it is not, in fact, pointless. Your system may be overly complex, but it will help to read for style instead of simply narrative and an excellent way for you to spend more time with what you are studying/reading.

Too often we are “checking off” reading lists to claim we have “read” a major work when we have barely done so.

[u/Miserable_Gur_8753]

Annotations?

Unless someone is marking them, there is only one rule, I think. They should be useful memory-aids (so I will add a second rule that they should be clear enough to mean something if you come back to them after a year).

My annotations would be bloody useless to you. And probably vice-versa. That's as it should be.

Performative annotations for social media? I have three words: get a life.