Preview and Annotate

The key to critical reading is to read actively. Imagine that you and the author are having a conversation. You should take in what the author is saying, but you also need to respond to the author's ideas.

While you read, be constantly aware of how you are reacting to the author's ideas.

Do you agree with these ideas? Do you find them surprising, new, or interesting? Are they mundane, outdated, or unrealistic? Do they make you angry, happy, skeptical, or persuaded? Does the author offer ideas, arguments, or evidence you can use in your own writing? What information in this text isn't useful to you?

Preview the Text

When you start reading a text, give yourself a few moments to size it up. Ask yourself some basic questions:

• What are the major features of this text? Scan and skim through the text to gather a sense of the text's topic and main point. Pay special attention to the following features:

• Title and subtitle – make guesses about the text's purpose and main point based on the words in the title and subtitle.

• Author – look up the author or authors on the Internet to better understand their expertise in the area as well as their values and potential biases.

• Chapters and headings – scan the text's chapter titles, headings, and subheadings to figure out its organization and major sections.

• Visuals – browse any graphs, charts, photographs, drawings, and other images to gain an overall sense of the text's topic.
  

• What is the purpose of this text? Find the place where the author or authors explain why they wrote the text. In a book, the authors will often use the preface to explain their purpose and what motivated them to write. In texts such as articles or reports, the authors will usually signal what they are trying to accomplish in the introduction or conclusion.

• Patterns – there are four general groupings by which information is organized, depending on the author's purpose: 

• definitions, details, and illustrations

• time sequences, process descriptions, experiment/instructions, and simple listing

• comparison and contrast

• cause and effect
  

• What is the genre of the text? Identify the genre of the text by analyzing its content, organization, style, and design. What do you normally expect from this genre? Is it the appropriate genre to achieve the authors' purpose? For this genre, what choices about content, organization, style, design, and medium would you expect to find?
  

• What is your first response? Pay attention to your initial reactions to the text. What seems to be grabbing your attention? What seems new and interesting? What doesn't seem new or interesting? Based on your first impression, do you think you will agree or disagree with the authors? Do you think the material will be challenging or easy to understand?

Learn more about how to preview an academic text by watching this video:

Annotate the Text

As you read the text, highlight important sentences and take notes on the items you find useful or interesting.

• Highlight and annotate. While reading, keep a pencil or pen in your hand. If you are reading onscreen, you can use the "review" or "comment" feature of your word processor or e-reader to highlight parts of the text and add comments. These highlights and notes will help you find and examine key passages later on.
  

• Take notes. Write your observations and reactions to the text in your notebook or in a separate document on your computer. As you take notes, remember to look through and look at the text.

• Looking through: Describe what the text says, summarizing its main claims, facts, and ideas.

• Looking at: Describe how the author is using various rhetorical techniques, such as style, organization, design, medium, and so forth, to make the argument.

Learn more about how to annotate a text by watching this video.

br>

You might find it helpful to use a notetaking app such as Evernote, Google Keep, Memonic, OneNote, or Marky. With these tools, your notes are stored in the cloud, allowing you to access your comments whenever you are online. These electronic note-taking tools are especially helpful for organizing your sources and keeping track of your ideas.

Here is an example of an annotated text with a key:

Now that we understand previewing and annotating strategies for academic texts, let's learn how synthesizing, outlining, and summarizing help to read a text critically.

---

Sources: Pamela Bond, https://pressbooks.pub/powerofthepen/chapter/__unknown__-6/
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License.

Sheridan College, https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/comm/chapter/chapter-1-introduction-to-academic-writing-writing-for-success-1st-canadian-edition/
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License.

Patricia Williamson, https://uq.pressbooks.pub/academicwritingskills/chapter/annotated-reading-skills/
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License.

Bethany Bradshaw, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbobCpfj_d8
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Excelsior Online Writing Lab, https://owl.excelsior.edu/orc/what-to-do-while-reading/annotating/annotating-creating-an-annotation-system/
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.