Tips to Annotate Books- For School or Fun!

Some people will gasp at this... but I love writing in books!

Yes I know I'm insane. But there's just something about writing your thoughts or observations into a book that is so fun, especially when rereading.

So I'm going to and out some tips and tricks I use to annotate! Disclaimer: a lot of my inspiration for this video came from Little Book Owl on Youtube, so I will link her video at the end of this post.

1. Choose a style to use: there are three main ways to annotate; highlight, tab, and notes. Notes is good if you don't want to write on the pages of your book. Just split the book into sections and plop a notecard there so when you reach it you can write down your thoughts! I use highlighting and tabs together, usually matching the colors. I use different colors to mark certain things (i.e. fav. moments, romance, setting). It's goo for when you want to look back and find a certain point or theme for a review or essay.

2. Different categories for different books: the kinds of things you might note in a fun fantasy read are probably different than the ones you need for a school read. I'll give some examples... I'm reading "Emma" by Jane Austen and I have the two main characters as different tab colors, another one for quotes, another for setting, etc. For "An Enchantment of Ravens" by Margaret Rogerson, I had tabs for romance and worldbuilding. Find a method that works for you!

3. YOU DON'T HAVE TO ANNOTATE ALL YOUR BOOKS: I think a lot of people have this notion that once you start you can't stop, but that's hardly the case. Sometimes I'm to busy or just want to chill a bit. Don't worry about being perfect either; the book won't have any hard feelings ;)

Hope this helped!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCjSioWfMB8&feature=emb_logo