I never knew one can be such an active reader! I would usually just read then forget the locations of my favourite things in a book. But now I'm inspired to annotate. This is really helpful. Thanks!
I’m the same way! Or I’ll read the whole series back to back and then it just becomes a blur. Like I don’t remember which book it happened in. I’ve wanted to start annotating for awhile, but I keep pushing it off. I’m going to start in January 2021!
I'm always super impressed by people who have complex annotation systems. I never annotate books because a vast majority of what I read are audiobooks or books from the library. I do write down thoughts/quotes/page numbers to revisit etc in a notebook. The only color coding I do is I'll have the color ink that I'm using for a specific book somewhat match the cover of the book.
loved this video! your system is so interesting and gave me a lot of ideas. i usually just take notes in a separate notebook but now i want to give annotating a try!
I hope it works out well for you! I tried using a separate notebook but would always forget about it or forget to bring it with me - I need something IN the book otherwise I get so sucked in and forget all about annotating XD
That is a good system, it was interesting to see how you annotate! Back in middle school, my friend group passed around a couple of books that we would all annotate in and we got to read what the past readers felt/questioned or whatever at the time they read the book, it was super fun!
How do you annotate without breaking your flow? I find fiction so hard to tab because I get engrossed and race through the pages. Non-fiction is easier, it gets a tab whenever I go "HUH" inside
+Zank Apfel I don’t really force myself to break the flow with annotating, which is why I tend to have more tabs/notes at the start of the book than at the end. Sometimes if I take a break I’ll go back and tab parts that really stood out to me, but I don’t let it get too much in the way of my reading 😁
What I do is I just put a post it note wherever I think there is something important to any of my annotation points and later, I'll write a little blurb on each post it and then write in more detail in a google document
I'm preparing for my graduation and this is really helpful. I always wanted to annotate but I didn't know how to get started and would always end up wasting too much of my time in deciding what color codes to use. Thank you for this!
Haha! That's totally fine. It's personal preference.And I love to write on the pages and that too with a pen. And some people just get very offended by that. And I write only on my books and not on the ones which I might have borrowed.
I can't , nothing goes in my book apart from the Bookmark!! . My legs go all wobbly when people write in books!! I didn't even annotate my text books when I did my Degree. I had a big notebook with sections for references, quotes, etc. I get a lot of books from the Library so I don't think they would appreciate my spoiling the books!!
I love the index card idea! I feel like I drive myself crazy by highlighting way too much on every page and trying different systems for annotating. It's difficult because I get anxious with college classes hoping that I'll have good ideas from my annotations to discuss in class and write papers about. Even for leisure I'm confused how I should be annotating only for my reading experience. I'm trying to find a method that works without overdoing and overcomplicating my annotations, but I think the index cards are a nice way to keep things organized. This video was helpful :)
Something I’ve started doing recently (especially for favorites) is writing my reviews in the back of my books. I think it’s partially because I fear losing all of my Goodreads reviews, and I want to make sure I still have my thoughts on my favorite books :)
I now buy hardcovers whenever possible so I don't crack any spines. I'm trying to get over my perfectionism as well. It is actually most prominent with my books.
I've recently started to annotate my books. I really like to annotate books that are other peoples favorites. For example I just finished Mistborn. I tabbed large important plot points, underlined names or single sentences that seemed important. I wrote small notes and drew a heart for things I loved or made me swoon, exclamation point for wow moments, tear for sad moments. I also bracketed some shorter passages. I don't have a system down thats as neat as yours but I already enjoy looking back on what I wrote and theorized in the beginnings of the book. Thank you for your detailed description of your annotation process!
I get why some people annotate but it hurts my soul to think of writing in any book, even sticky notes or tabs make me nervous... LOL I guess that's one good thing about some of the eBooks in that some allow you to make notes without it "hurting the book" LOL I know that sounded weird and didn't make sense.....
It hurts me too. We were brought up not to spoil books. I get most of my books from the Library so it would not go down well. Even when I buy second hand books I check them for writing and scribbles.
Wow this index card idea is gonna be so beneficial for me cause i tend to read really huge fantasy books like ASOAF where there are huge cast of characters and their houses and sometimes it gets so overwhelming that I don’t know which side some of the houses take so definitely gonna be using this method .
so i couldn't wait to watch this video and in the end i watched this just now cause of merry chrysler and shhh okay, first of all, thank you, you inspired me to read again! i've been in the biggest reading slump ever, can't get myself to pick a book and it kills me, seriously. listening to you and seeing your books being so colorful just reminded me of how fun it was to read and annotate. i wanna do it again! the first book i have ever annotated was the bone season and thank god i did that because i still can remember about 50% of what happened even tho i read that probably like 4 years ago. annotating also made the whole process of reading much more pleasurable, idk. so yeah, thank you for inspiring me and thank you for making that video in general, i hope you also inspired a few more people to write in them books (cause, personal opinion but, books with cracked spines and history in them, written by readers, are so much cooler than just the clean, pure and brand new ones, no offence tho, love you all) have a good day!!
In my English class this year we are learning to annotate and such and I’ve been pretty indecisive with how i feel about it. This video was super inspirational and I think i’ll try using annotation a lot more outside of school.
I don’t know if you ever found a pack of twelve but I found some on a website called JetPens with 12 colors and they seem pretty nice quality! I’m about to up my annotation game from 5 colors to 12 because I want to get more in depth
I just started annotating my books again because I'm trying to get back into book blogging and eventually start my own channel, and what I think is so funny is how my own color association for my tabs was similar to yours! Obviously pink for relationships was a standard, but I literally thought "I'll use orange for problematic or irritating scenes because I HATE that color" and I also use yellow for character descriptions/development! Anyway I LOVED this video! So many insightful bits that I'll definitely be trying! ☺️
Ahahaha I laughed at the "woohoo" part. As soon as you said that I thought "Oh, she must play the Sims." and then you confirmed that thought a few moments later.
This was helpful. When I tried doing this I felt a little confused and that I was using sticky notes to much. This made me feel better about how I was annotating. :)
I was looking for a video involving a textbook. Also, personally I can’t get pulled into anything other than non-fiction. Your passion and excitement in your explaining but, that had me going until the end of your video. I love it! Only negative is, orange is my FAVOURITE colour! Thanks for the video darl, bloody brilliant!
Wow, thank you. I will be adopting your system for the most part perhaps switching my use of orange to indicate favs, and keeping a general green for particularities of world building.
I absolutely adored this video!! As someone who started annotating recently, this really helped show the options rather than keeping a singular system for all. I really liked how you incorporated the index aspect and that's perfect for those adult high fantasies where there's basically no space in the margins. Defo going to have a look for a strong bookmark to use as a ruler!
Tbh annotating seems so overwhelming at first but once I got the hang of it, its so satisfying to see all the tabs stucking out after lol This is so helpful!!! ❤️
I love your colorful rainbow of annotations. :) As a kid & even know I just underline with a pencil or highlight a word I don;'t know. Then I would write it down & look it up later. Plus i do underline lines i can relate to (on a personal level) in the story. So I guess, i was sort of doing my own annotation as a kid to now. Just never noticed it. Lol
This has been helpful and gave me a few ideas. I really want to start doing something like this in my physical books 😊 As for my ereader, it only gives me 4 colours to highlight with so I'm not sure what categories to use the colours for.
Lately I've been highlighting in yellow as I go and tab when I feel it's necessary (using different color tabs, but less strict about tab meaning from book to book). I find yellow highlighter to be hard to see in a lot of yellow/soft lighting I sit and read under, but easy for me to flip back through later if I want to find certain parts to reference. It's nice at the end of a very good book to set down and flip back over and add annotations of things I would want to remember during future reads. But in general I use different annotation strategies from book to book (often not annotating at all), since the books I read can be different, I go with what seems appropriate while I'm in the story.
My first thought after you finished your color code was “I’m gunna try this on my copy of fire cause I’m gunna get one with the new cover to match my collection any way” and then you pulled out your copy and I about died. Fire is one of my favorite books and I’ve re read it so many times it’s almost falling apart!!
Thanks. I use all methods but slightly differently. I use only three colours for my sticky notes; I index after every chapter and I underline and write.
Thanks you for this. I've been curious to see how people tab their books and besides just tabbing whatever you feel like, you have a great system. I might give it a go or see what works for me. Also for the index cards you could write a page number reference so you know when in the book you had a thought once you return it to the 500/100 page mark. I'd probably just keep the cards at the start or use as a bookmark and just use the page numbered to remember at what moment I made a note.
I love the color-coded sticky notes! Might have to steal that! I'm curious, though. If you had a pack of sticky notes with 12 different colors, how would your annotations be different? Why is 12 your perfect number and what concessions have you made to bring that number down to 10? I'd probably separate them by: - Character - Relationship - Conflict/Challenges/Negative Happenings (semi-related to plot) (Have a hard time incorporating these in my writing so it's helpful to point them out) - World (which is different from) - Society (how people behave in said world, is there a power structure, tropes related to genre) - Favorite (sometimes techniques to put in my own writing) - Dislike (what not to do in my own writing) - Questions
I use two mildliners: blue for passages I like and pink to highlight words to look up. I don’t read fantasy so I don’t need so many colors or things to track.
I like the color coding ... genius when i write in my books i just underline, tab, and write in pencil don’t really right in books but my actually try this when need one day.
I like the index card idea. I do not have the best of memories, and I usually do not have someone I can talk about my books with, so writing everything down on an index card is a wonderful idea.
We both do green for world-building. I've found that I'm good (so far) with seven colors, but I also like using highlighters in mine so that does limit my options a bit. I love seeing how other people annotate though, I'm still figuring it out myself.
This is honestly so helpful! I'm planning on annotating my J.R.R. Tolkien books (especially with the Silmarillion) just because they're all so complex, but I had no idea how to do it.
Absolutely love your channel, I only stumbled across it a day or so ago and I'm loving it! Also, love that you're an Aus booktuber -- I haven't come across many as yet. Very cool to see your annotation method. I'm definitely a sticky tab + annotation kind of girl. Loved this!
This is fantastic. I’ve used sticky notes a lot when I’ve really loved certain books but only annotated by writing in th books when I’m rereading something for th second or third time and I’m doing a more close analysis like when I was studying but I’ve been tempted for a while to introduce it more often or to do something like the index cards to help my memory for reviewing. Thank you for a great overview!
Hey, I’m a new subscriber, thanks for sharing your annotating system, I never thought of using index cards. Now I can keep all my notes in one place, I don’t have to use a separate notebook anymore, thanks you saved my life. Well, for me I have two different annotating systems: one for fiction, the other for non-fiction. I use a combination of annotating methods: tabs, sticky notes and a system of symbols to mark up the passages. I even write short notes on the pages when needed. My color coded system goes like this: Blue: questions/ confused words, phrases, passages Green: setting/ world building Purple: characters Yellow: meaningful quotes Pink: cultural/ historical/ religious/ political hints and references Orange: important turns and twists in plot Light pink:favorite passages ( emotionally charged moments, funny passages, passages that make you stop and ponder) There is article on WikiHow which is extremely helpful. PS: where are you from exactly in Australia?I need to know about this for a research paper on English accents.
Thank you so much for this video! I have decided to try doing this, in the new year, and was really unsure on how to start. Definitely will save this,and use it as my jumping off point.
This is a great video! I am currently the person you described in the video- scared of cracking spines; but I think It transitioning towards annotating (kindle introduced me to the concept :-P). I don't have any purpose of taking notes other than having the option of going through my thoughts again for now. Your video gave me lots of great ideas!
I’ve been using 6 colors for annotating and have definitely been feeling like I need more colors!! I love all these tips and your system. I’ll definitely be trying to implement more of this in my annotating!!
What should I do if I can’t annotate my books? A lot of the books I buy are more like collectibles, I like to buy the prettiest/best version since I also consider books art. What’s a good system for taking notes outside of the book? Discuss 😊
I do the pencil writing and tabs, although my tabs are not color coded like yours and I only annotate favorite quotes. Once I start reviewing, I will obviously probably go for the color codes!
I LOVE the idea of being able to look at the colours of the tabs on a closed book and be able to see all the feelings you experienced - I have to try this!
Thank you for this video. A friend recommended annotating books, so I can have not only a better understanding of them but also to remember what I read for longer. But I was wondering what you meant by representation is it supposed to be the representing the writer’s style?
Annotating is something I'm struggling with lol. I'll do it and then feel guilty about it but I really love how annotated books look and feel. I think I'm going to do both annotate my reactions and when I get my Ipad keep like serious notes on that in onenote like you do the index cards.
Literally just came across this video and your channel, and I am already in love with just the name! I have always called myself a book owl (because I hate worms, so bookworm is not appealing to me) love that kindred spirit here!
I don’t think I could ever annotate directly on the page in any of my books and I’m terrible at taking notes as I read, but I do want to use sticky notes in my Harry Potter reader copy books, I sometimes forget what’s book cannon and what’s movie cannon. Great video!
I’m sharing this video with the book club I’m starting. We are all in school and we wanna get better at annotating. And my teacher wants us to do it a certain way but I’m way to stubborn and petty to do it the way she wants because I don’t like her
With some books I don't annotate, but if it's really really good, has a lot of potential analysis, or is non-fiction, I will. Even then, there's a lot of variation in how heavily I annotate a book. If I own the book, I always write on the page, though sometimes I put a post-it note or dogear on a page if I really want to remember where a quote is.
I’d really like to annotate with stickies and highlighters of all different colors but I do a lot of my reading on the go and I don’t have an efficient way of carrying all that stuff around with me as of yet 😭 I end up just using a single colored pen while annotating but I’m definitely gonna have to stick an index card in there before I start reading because I’m always running out of space to write.
If you had the option to use 12 page markers, what would the other two be? You did mention the 10, which I loved by the way, but I’m curious what else you could look for. 😄 Extremely helpful video!! 😍
I would also have a tab for foreshadowing if you think it is foreshadowing or the second Tim's you read it and know it is foreshadowing. I have the same exact copy of the first two Harry Potter books so I plan on rereading them and fully annotating them.
I love your annotating system ! I tried to use sticky tabs but was not so effective. I 'll incorporate some of your tips to my reading and see if my memory will be better 😂. Happy Christmas from Brazil!!
I never knew one can be such an active reader! I would usually just read then forget the locations of my favourite things in a book. But now I'm inspired to annotate. This is really helpful. Thanks!
I’m the same way! Or I’ll read the whole series back to back and then it just becomes a blur. Like I don’t remember which book it happened in. I’ve wanted to start annotating for awhile, but I keep pushing it off. I’m going to start in January 2021!
@@sophianowack i’ve just decided to start. how’s it going so far? 💗
@@bbbrrrbbbrrr I actually really like it! I don’t annotate every book I read though
I'm always super impressed by people who have complex annotation systems.
I never annotate books because a vast majority of what I read are audiobooks or books from the library.
I do write down thoughts/quotes/page numbers to revisit etc in a notebook.
The only color coding I do is I'll have the color ink that I'm using for a specific book somewhat match the cover of the book.
I am currently burrowing Lady Midnight and there was a moment that surprised me, I could not mark the page so I used the nearest scrap of paper.
I am currently burrowing Lady Midnight and there was a moment that surprised me, I could not mark the page so I used the nearest scrap of paper.
loved this video! your system is so interesting and gave me a lot of ideas. i usually just take notes in a separate notebook but now i want to give annotating a try!
I hope it works out well for you! I tried using a separate notebook but would always forget about it or forget to bring it with me - I need something IN the book otherwise I get so sucked in and forget all about annotating XD
Little Book Owl if im fine with just five colors and i make it work is that fine??
@@aliviaquarles2263 however you like and works for you!
What would be your ideal 12 colour sticky tab situation? What 2 categories would you add to your current tabs?
That is a good system, it was interesting to see how you annotate!
Back in middle school, my friend group passed around a couple of books that we would all annotate in and we got to read what the past readers felt/questioned or whatever at the time they read the book, it was super fun!
Omg this is such a beautiful idea! I'll try it out when the pandemic ends lmao
I wish I had your friend group😭😭
sorry but i’m jealous about this lol wish i had that
How do you annotate without breaking your flow? I find fiction so hard to tab because I get engrossed and race through the pages. Non-fiction is easier, it gets a tab whenever I go "HUH" inside
+Zank Apfel I don’t really force myself to break the flow with annotating, which is why I tend to have more tabs/notes at the start of the book than at the end. Sometimes if I take a break I’ll go back and tab parts that really stood out to me, but I don’t let it get too much in the way of my reading 😁
True. I'm also like this. That's why I only annotate with books that I'm rereading
What I do is I just put a post it note wherever I think there is something important to any of my annotation points and later, I'll write a little blurb on each post it and then write in more detail in a google document
That’s why I only annotate books I reread. I annotate them on my second or third time reading.
I wish I had the patience to actually annotate 😂
WOOHOO!!! 😂😂
I LOVE all of your tips! I might try to incorporate some of them into my annotating. Loved this video!!! 💕
this really inspired me to annotate the next book i read
Me too! And I never did that before but now I'm inspired :)
I've never thought of using a bookmark to help underline more neatly!!! Omg this changes everything 😂
SAME! I actually said "oh my god" aloud. 😂 I feel both enlightened and rather stupid.
At this point, I'm just going to make a regular ruler into a bookmark
I love the index card idea. I can’t believe I haven’t thought of it before.
And I only write in my books with pencil.
More annotation videos are what I wanted love your hair
I'm preparing for my graduation and this is really helpful. I always wanted to annotate but I didn't know how to get started and would always end up wasting too much of my time in deciding what color codes to use. Thank you for this!
I physically cannot write in a book. It hurts my soul.
I totally understand. How about annotating on post-it notes?
Haha! That's totally fine. It's personal preference.And I love to write on the pages and that too with a pen. And some people just get very offended by that. And I write only on my books and not on the ones which I might have borrowed.
me too but if i do want to write, id do it very lightly with a pencil
@@chrysanthemum5594 With pen 😳😳😳😳 uh r a devil !!!
I can't , nothing goes in my book apart from the Bookmark!! . My legs go all wobbly when people write in books!! I didn't even annotate my text books when I did my Degree. I had a big notebook with sections for references, quotes, etc. I get a lot of books from the Library so I don't think they would appreciate my spoiling the books!!
Wow this is "taking annotations to the next level"! I just underline my favourite quotes/parts
I love the index card idea! I feel like I drive myself crazy by highlighting way too much on every page and trying different systems for annotating. It's difficult because I get anxious with college classes hoping that I'll have good ideas from my annotations to discuss in class and write papers about. Even for leisure I'm confused how I should be annotating only for my reading experience. I'm trying to find a method that works without overdoing and overcomplicating my annotations, but I think the index cards are a nice way to keep things organized. This video was helpful :)
Something I’ve started doing recently (especially for favorites) is writing my reviews in the back of my books. I think it’s partially because I fear losing all of my Goodreads reviews, and I want to make sure I still have my thoughts on my favorite books :)
I now buy hardcovers whenever possible so I don't crack any spines. I'm trying to get over my perfectionism as well. It is actually most prominent with my books.
I've recently started to annotate my books. I really like to annotate books that are other peoples favorites. For example I just finished Mistborn. I tabbed large important plot points, underlined names or single sentences that seemed important. I wrote small notes and drew a heart for things I loved or made me swoon, exclamation point for wow moments, tear for sad moments. I also bracketed some shorter passages. I don't have a system down thats as neat as yours but I already enjoy looking back on what I wrote and theorized in the beginnings of the book. Thank you for your detailed description of your annotation process!
I get why some people annotate but it hurts my soul to think of writing in any book, even sticky notes or tabs make me nervous... LOL I guess that's one good thing about some of the eBooks in that some allow you to make notes without it "hurting the book" LOL I know that sounded weird and didn't make sense.....
Robert Murphy nah it makes perfect sense. It’s why I love ebooks, I can read them without damaging them!
It hurts me too. We were brought up not to spoil books. I get most of my books from the Library so it would not go down well. Even when I buy second hand books I check them for writing and scribbles.
Wow this index card idea is gonna be so beneficial for me cause i tend to read really huge fantasy books like ASOAF where there are huge cast of characters and their houses and sometimes it gets so overwhelming that I don’t know which side some of the houses take so definitely gonna be using this method .
so i couldn't wait to watch this video and in the end i watched this just now cause of merry chrysler and shhh
okay, first of all, thank you, you inspired me to read again! i've been in the biggest reading slump ever, can't get myself to pick a book and it kills me, seriously. listening to you and seeing your books being so colorful just reminded me of how fun it was to read and annotate. i wanna do it again!
the first book i have ever annotated was the bone season and thank god i did that because i still can remember about 50% of what happened even tho i read that probably like 4 years ago. annotating also made the whole process of reading much more pleasurable, idk.
so yeah, thank you for inspiring me and thank you for making that video in general, i hope you also inspired a few more people to write in them books (cause, personal opinion but, books with cracked spines and history in them, written by readers, are so much cooler than just the clean, pure and brand new ones, no offence tho, love you all)
have a good day!!
In my English class this year we are learning to annotate and such and I’ve been pretty indecisive with how i feel about it. This video was super inspirational and I think i’ll try using annotation a lot more outside of school.
I don’t know if you ever found a pack of twelve but I found some on a website called JetPens with 12 colors and they seem pretty nice quality! I’m about to up my annotation game from 5 colors to 12 because I want to get more in depth
I really need to stop being so strict with my books and do this! You gave me some great ideas to help start getting me into it
I just started annotating my books again because I'm trying to get back into book blogging and eventually start my own channel, and what I think is so funny is how my own color association for my tabs was similar to yours! Obviously pink for relationships was a standard, but I literally thought "I'll use orange for problematic or irritating scenes because I HATE that color" and I also use yellow for character descriptions/development! Anyway I LOVED this video! So many insightful bits that I'll definitely be trying! ☺️
Ahahaha I laughed at the "woohoo" part. As soon as you said that I thought "Oh, she must play the Sims." and then you confirmed that thought a few moments later.
This was helpful. When I tried doing this I felt a little confused and that I was using sticky notes to much. This made me feel better about how I was annotating. :)
I was looking for a video involving a textbook. Also, personally I can’t get pulled into anything other than non-fiction. Your passion and excitement in your explaining but, that had me going until the end of your video. I love it! Only negative is, orange is my FAVOURITE colour!
Thanks for the video darl, bloody brilliant!
Wow, thank you. I will be adopting your system for the most part perhaps switching my use of orange to indicate favs, and keeping a general green for particularities of world building.
I absolutely adored this video!! As someone who started annotating recently, this really helped show the options rather than keeping a singular system for all. I really liked how you incorporated the index aspect and that's perfect for those adult high fantasies where there's basically no space in the margins. Defo going to have a look for a strong bookmark to use as a ruler!
Tbh annotating seems so overwhelming at first but once I got the hang of it, its so satisfying to see all the tabs stucking out after lol
This is so helpful!!! ❤️
I love your colorful rainbow of annotations. :)
As a kid & even know I just underline with a pencil or highlight a word I don;'t know. Then I would write it down & look it up later. Plus i do underline lines i can relate to (on a personal level) in the story. So I guess, i was sort of doing my own annotation as a kid to now. Just never noticed it. Lol
This has been helpful and gave me a few ideas. I really want to start doing something like this in my physical books 😊
As for my ereader, it only gives me 4 colours to highlight with so I'm not sure what categories to use the colours for.
Lately I've been highlighting in yellow as I go and tab when I feel it's necessary (using different color tabs, but less strict about tab meaning from book to book). I find yellow highlighter to be hard to see in a lot of yellow/soft lighting I sit and read under, but easy for me to flip back through later if I want to find certain parts to reference. It's nice at the end of a very good book to set down and flip back over and add annotations of things I would want to remember during future reads. But in general I use different annotation strategies from book to book (often not annotating at all), since the books I read can be different, I go with what seems appropriate while I'm in the story.
My first thought after you finished your color code was “I’m gunna try this on my copy of fire cause I’m gunna get one with the new cover to match my collection any way” and then you pulled out your copy and I about died. Fire is one of my favorite books and I’ve re read it so many times it’s almost falling apart!!
Thanks. I use all methods but slightly differently. I use only three colours for my sticky notes; I index after every chapter and I underline and write.
Thanks you for this. I've been curious to see how people tab their books and besides just tabbing whatever you feel like, you have a great system. I might give it a go or see what works for me.
Also for the index cards you could write a page number reference so you know when in the book you had a thought once you return it to the 500/100 page mark. I'd probably just keep the cards at the start or use as a bookmark and just use the page numbered to remember at what moment I made a note.
Could you explain the remaining 2 categories for the sticky notes? I am really curious. Loving the video 🤓.
I’ve only annotated a few books but definitely want to annotate more in the future.
I love the color-coded sticky notes! Might have to steal that! I'm curious, though. If you had a pack of sticky notes with 12 different colors, how would your annotations be different? Why is 12 your perfect number and what concessions have you made to bring that number down to 10?
I'd probably separate them by:
- Character
- Relationship
- Conflict/Challenges/Negative Happenings (semi-related to plot) (Have a hard time incorporating these in my writing so it's helpful to point them out)
- World (which is different from)
- Society (how people behave in said world, is there a power structure, tropes related to genre)
- Favorite (sometimes techniques to put in my own writing)
- Dislike (what not to do in my own writing)
- Questions
This is such a concise, well-edited video and was so interesting to watch! Loved it 💕
I use two mildliners: blue for passages I like and pink to highlight words to look up. I don’t read fantasy so I don’t need so many colors or things to track.
I like the color coding ... genius when i write in my books i just underline, tab, and write in pencil don’t really right in books but my actually try this when need one day.
I like the index card idea. I do not have the best of memories, and I usually do not have someone I can talk about my books with, so writing everything down on an index card is a wonderful idea.
We both do green for world-building. I've found that I'm good (so far) with seven colors, but I also like using highlighters in mine so that does limit my options a bit. I love seeing how other people annotate though, I'm still figuring it out myself.
Using index cards was something totally new for me. It is a great idea. Thank you so much
This is honestly so helpful! I'm planning on annotating my J.R.R. Tolkien books (especially with the Silmarillion) just because they're all so complex, but I had no idea how to do it.
Absolutely love your channel, I only stumbled across it a day or so ago and I'm loving it! Also, love that you're an Aus booktuber -- I haven't come across many as yet. Very cool to see your annotation method. I'm definitely a sticky tab + annotation kind of girl. Loved this!
On a different note...your makeup is flawless.
This is fantastic. I’ve used sticky notes a lot when I’ve really loved certain books but only annotated by writing in th books when I’m rereading something for th second or third time and I’m doing a more close analysis like when I was studying but I’ve been tempted for a while to introduce it more often or to do something like the index cards to help my memory for reviewing. Thank you for a great overview!
Hey, I’m a new subscriber, thanks for sharing your annotating system, I never thought of using index cards. Now I can keep all my notes in one place, I don’t have to use a separate notebook anymore, thanks you saved my life. Well, for me I have two different annotating systems: one for fiction, the other for non-fiction. I use a combination of annotating methods: tabs, sticky notes and a system of symbols to mark up the passages. I even write short notes on the pages when needed. My color coded system goes like this:
Blue: questions/ confused words, phrases, passages
Green: setting/ world building
Purple: characters
Yellow: meaningful quotes
Pink: cultural/ historical/ religious/ political hints and references
Orange: important turns and twists in plot
Light pink:favorite passages ( emotionally charged moments, funny passages, passages that make you stop and ponder)
There is article on WikiHow which is extremely helpful.
PS: where are you from exactly in Australia?I need to know about this for a research paper on English accents.
Thank you so much for this video! I have decided to try doing this, in the new year, and was really unsure on how to start. Definitely will save this,and use it as my jumping off point.
This is a great video! I am currently the person you described in the video- scared of cracking spines; but I think It transitioning towards annotating (kindle introduced me to the concept :-P). I don't have any purpose of taking notes other than having the option of going through my thoughts again for now. Your video gave me lots of great ideas!
The index cards are such a good idea.
I have missed your videos!!! I stopped watching booktube because college computer science life! But now I am back bb!!!!
I’ve been using 6 colors for annotating and have definitely been feeling like I need more colors!! I love all these tips and your system. I’ll definitely be trying to implement more of this in my annotating!!
What should I do if I can’t annotate my books? A lot of the books I buy are more like collectibles, I like to buy the prettiest/best version since I also consider books art.
What’s a good system for taking notes outside of the book? Discuss 😊
Tabs make sure they dont pull or rip the pages in an old book or pull up ink and if you need you can just remove them
loved this video! I've always been a little scared to annotate my books, but maybe I'll try it :)
I do the pencil writing and tabs, although my tabs are not color coded like yours and I only annotate favorite quotes. Once I start reviewing, I will obviously probably go for the color codes!
Oh wow - this is making my ocd organisational mind squee with happiness.
This was super helpful. I've felt the urge to stay annotating my books but wasnt sure of a method that would work for me.
I LOVE the idea of being able to look at the colours of the tabs on a closed book and be able to see all the feelings you experienced - I have to try this!
Thank you for this video. A friend recommended annotating books, so I can have not only a better understanding of them but also to remember what I read for longer. But I was wondering what you meant by representation is it supposed to be the representing the writer’s style?
Am I the only one who cannot physically bring myself to write in a book. I just cringe at the thought of it
I can't unless it's a travel guidebook and I'm planning a trip. I wouldn't dream of writing in any other book.
Same sis
Same here. I can highlight tho for some reason
Every time I start writing in a new book it’d hard. Once I get some writing in it it’s easy
I try to buy the books second hand so I feel less bad about it! Especially if they have rips and stains already it adds character to me
“Sticking to these” 😄
Annotating is something I'm struggling with lol. I'll do it and then feel guilty about it but I really love how annotated books look and feel. I think I'm going to do both annotate my reactions and when I get my Ipad keep like serious notes on that in onenote like you do the index cards.
You are lovely. I adore you.
Also you are always so well spoken. It’s wonderful.
Literally just came across this video and your channel, and I am already in love with just the name! I have always called myself a book owl (because I hate worms, so bookworm is not appealing to me) love that kindred spirit here!
That's amazing....... your books are looking so colourful........ isn't it?????
I think I might give a shot to the index card method, it sounded super useful!
this was a big help for me! i'm just getting into annotating, so thank you so much!
I don’t think I could ever annotate directly on the page in any of my books and I’m terrible at taking notes as I read, but I do want to use sticky notes in my Harry Potter reader copy books, I sometimes forget what’s book cannon and what’s movie cannon. Great video!
As a fellow voracious reader, I absolutely loved this video! Thanks for all of the tips!
I’m sharing this video with the book club I’m starting. We are all in school and we wanna get better at annotating.
And my teacher wants us to do it a certain way but I’m way to stubborn and petty to do it the way she wants because I don’t like her
2:25 what colours mean
With some books I don't annotate, but if it's really really good, has a lot of potential analysis, or is non-fiction, I will. Even then, there's a lot of variation in how heavily I annotate a book. If I own the book, I always write on the page, though sometimes I put a post-it note or dogear on a page if I really want to remember where a quote is.
Girlfriend you annotate like it is your job! Love the video. Thank you for sharing.
Would love to see videos diving in to your tabs on specific books like nevernight and fire
Wow! Very handy! I love your techniques!
Thanks so much 💖💘
Hi, I don't know if there's Renaud Bray(book store) in Australia, but they have 12 colours with diff styles such as pencils, normal, etc.
I’d really like to annotate with stickies and highlighters of all different colors but I do a lot of my reading on the go and I don’t have an efficient way of carrying all that stuff around with me as of yet 😭 I end up just using a single colored pen while annotating but I’m definitely gonna have to stick an index card in there before I start reading because I’m always running out of space to write.
Have you ever considered reading the Neapolitan Novels series? I think you would love them, they're some of my absolute favorites
If you had the option to use 12 page markers, what would the other two be? You did mention the 10, which I loved by the way, but I’m curious what else you could look for. 😄 Extremely helpful video!! 😍
Thank you, this is so useful! I will definitely be using these tips for my book club.
I've always wanted to start annotating! Such a good idea.
Your colour-coding system is brilliant! Thank you for this video, I found it so helpful!
thank you so much I was struggling since I didn't know how to annotate.
I would also have a tab for foreshadowing if you think it is foreshadowing or the second Tim's you read it and know it is foreshadowing. I have the same exact copy of the first two Harry Potter books so I plan on rereading them and fully annotating them.
You’re so cute I die
Rip
I love your annotating system ! I tried to use sticky tabs but was not so effective. I 'll incorporate some of your tips to my reading and see if my memory will be better 😂. Happy Christmas from Brazil!!
I really want to start annotating my books, mainly my favorites, this video has really helped me.
your hair looks so good omg!
really good tricks, I'm definitely gonna use some of them, thank you! here's a question: Which books do you choose to annotate and why?
I love using the sticky tabs, but I just might start actually writing and underlining too.
this was so helpful for my daughter who had to annotate To Kill A Mockingbird THANK YOU
That’s so cool! I started annotating this year but I havent really come up with a concrete system yet. I love this system?
Ahhh I meant to do an exclamation point!
Pilot frixion pens are heat erasable so all you need to do to remove it is a hair dryer (or forget the book into the sun for too long)
Postet notes are also great because you can mark a quote and write out a thought without actually writing in the book
very useful for me starting reading!! Thanks