Susan Gilroy notes that the exercise of annotating a piece of writing as you read it is similar to having a conversation with yourself, which allows you as a reader to better understand the content being digested. I agree with this notion, as I actively annotate just about anything I read, whether it be a article for school, the newspaper, or a book I read for pleasure. This is a habit I picked up on in Highschool when I found it helped solidify the material I was processing, without it just vanishing out of my mind the minute I was done with a page. When annotating for school, such as for this English course, I tend to categorize information using different color highlights, noting brief concepts in the margins, and marking key ideas so that I can quickly find them while writing my essay. I prefer to make primary connections before I write my essay rather than during, so being able to re-visualize past connections, isolating quotes, and marking supporting evidence is extremely helpful in my writing process.

As seen in the examples below, I use different colors to signal major arguments and evidence that I could use in the future, such as gear requirements, names of significant corporations or bills, and evidence proving Canada’s guilt. In addition, by jotting down notes such as “add to intro” allows me to not have to re-read an entire article to find what I am looking for. As Gilroy suggests, I almost have a conversation with myself about the material, which deepens my understanding of the topic being discussed.