Annotating Textbooks Adding value to your study time

What is annotating? Annotating is the process of marking your text and adding marginal notes as study aids.

What are the benefits of annotating? • Helps you stay focused • Helps you decide what’s important to understand remember • Provides a record of your thinking • Makes your text easier to review • Adds kinesthetic learning to textbook study

Isn’t annotating time-consuming? • This process takes time, but it is a very efficient way to learn material thoroughly, remember it for tests and beyond, and increase your chances for academic success.

But what if you want to sell your book back at the end of the term? Marking in your book will not reduce its buyback value. According to the DMACC bookstore and independent book sellers, a used book is a used book, whether or not it’s been marked in. So annotate to your heart’s content! You won’t lose a penny, and you’ll add to the value of the book for yourself.

Why not just highlight important material? • Highlighting can be a helpful component of annotating to identify main points • BUT highlighting alone provides no way to record your thinking or to set up a selfquizzing system

How can you annotate? Annotating is a personal system that you can modify to fit your learning style.

Annotating suggestions: Main ideas • Use a special marking clue for the most important concepts, thesis statements –*Asterisk – Double underline – Special highlighter color • Use a different marking clue for topic sentences of paragraphs – Single underline – Second color

Annotating suggestions: Definitions • Circle or highlight the term being defined • Bracket the term and the definition • Note an example with ex. in the margin [Nanotechnology, the science of tiny structures, ] may be used to create microex. scopic robots that can repair damaged blood vessels.

Annotation suggestions: Lists • Add marginal headings to label lists • Add numbers and underline the items in the lists Types of robots 1 2 3 4 5 The hunter-killer at the Space and Naval Warfare systems Center is one of five broad categories of military robots under development. Another scouts buildings, tunnels and caves. A third hauls tons of weapons and gear. . A fourth is a drone in flights. . . A fifth, originally designed as a security guard, will soon be able to launch drones to conduct surveillance, psychological warfare and other missions. (from Weiner, “A New Model Army Soldier”)

Annotation suggestions: Marginal notes • Add a question – To aid in self-quizzing (next to or above the answer) – To remind yourself to ask about confusing material in class What types of military robots are being developed? 1 The hunter-killer at the Space and Naval Warfare systems Center is one of five broad categories of military robots 2 under development. Another scouts buildings, tunnels and 3 caves. A third hauls tons of weapons and gear. . A fourth 4 is a drone in flights. . . A fifth, originally designed as a 5 security guard, will soon be able to launch drones to conduct surveillance, psychological warfare and other missions. (from Weiner, “A New Model Army Soldier”)

Annotation suggestions: Marginal notes • Summarize and paraphrase – To make sure you understand the material – To shorten your reading time when you review Robots superior to humans—no emotions or physical needs “They don’t get hungry, ” said Gordon Johnson of the Joint Forces Command at the Pentagon. “They’re not afraid. They don’t forget their orders. They don’t care if the guy next to them has just been shot. Will they do a better job than humans? Yes. ” (from Weiner, “ A New Model Army Soldier”)

Annotation suggestions: Comments • To reflect your personal reactions • To connect to other reading or lecture material • To raise a point in class discussion But is it a good idea to have machines with no moral sense making decisions on the battlefield? This is a scary possibility. “They don’t get hungry, ” said Gordon Johnson of the Joint Forces Command at the Pentagon. “They’re not afraid. They don’t forget their orders. They don’t care if the guy next to them has just been shot. Will they do a better job than humans? Yes. ” (from Weiner, “ A New Model Army Soldier”)