…annotation is something we all do all the time and can include everything from footnotes to criticism, graffiti to fan fiction. What is social media but spaces where people annotate texts and images, the digital margins of our daily lives?^[1]

Thought about in the way of the quoted passage above, annotation is likely an activity you’re already comfortable doing.

It is also a very helpful part of the active reading process, to keep you engaged with the text as you’re reading it closely.  This video emphasizes that role of annotation, with a few how-to tips.

https://youtu.be/BrlUkc5hPzs

Finally, annotation is a helpful component of summarizing.  Taking notes to yourself while reading closely is the first step of mastering difficult concepts.  This will allow you to then be able to interpret and explain those difficult concepts to others.