Skip to Main Content
University of York Library
Library Subject Guides

Note-taking: a Practical Guide

Annotation

Dive into the world of effective note-taking strategies.
Feedback
X

Annotation


What is the Annotation method?


It involves writing directly onto a text such as slides, lecture-notes, or a photocopy/scan. This might be done digitally or on printed materials. 

This method is ideal for efficiently engaging with content without extensive note-taking. You can even use it to take lecture notes, by writing your own notes directly onto a copy of the slides.

You can enhance your understanding by highlighting, underlining, and drawing on the slides of a text, making it easier to grasp key points and establish connections with the material.

How to annotate

  1. Get a copy of the text you want to annotate either by downloading or printing . Read the content, and write down any questions or remarks it provokes.
  2. Experiment with highlighting, underlining, and drawing when reading or taking notes.
  3. If you're taking notes on a lecture using a copy of the slides, listen actively and annotate the slides with important points and any questions you might have.
  4. Aim to just capture essential details and concepts — avoid verbatim transcription. 
  5. Afterwards, re-read your annotations to ensure clarity and completeness.

Annotating digital documents

It's one thing drawing all over a piece of paper or covering it in post-its, but how can you make notes like this digitally?


'Office' files

Google Docs and Microsoft Word allow you to highlight a text and add comments, while PowerPoint and Google Slides have notes fields you could use. You can also print out files like these, either to paper or to a PDF.


Digitising physical texts

The 'MFD' printers on campus can scan physical documents and turn them into image files or even into PDFs.


PDFs

There's various tools for annotating a PDF, including Adobe Reader, OrbitNote, and the Microsoft Edge browser.


Other documents

Webpages can be printed as PDFs and Images could be annotated by pasting them into another program. You could also use a qualitative data analysis program like NVivo to make notes on text, images, audio, and video, though that might be a bit extreme for most needs.

Annotation example

A printout of three slides from a PowerPoint presentation, with slides down the left column and space for notes to the right. The first slide has bulleted points about energy, potential energy of electrons, and energy levels or electron shells. The bit about energy levels has been highlighted. In the notes space has been written a paragraph explaining electrons, their negative charge, and how they store energy, followed by two questions about electron energy absorption, release, and electron existence between energy levels. The second slide displays a diagram illustrating the first three energy levels around an atomic nucleus, showing the energy absorbed and lost as arrows moving between levels. Some arrows have been drawn onto the diagram, noting that the capacity of each level to hold up to 8 electrons. In the notes field is a brief explanation about the atomic nucleus being the core where protons and neutrons reside.The final slide lists points about the valence shell's control over atom behavior, bonding, atom reactivity, and gaining or losing electrons to achieve full valence shells. Again, parts have been highlighted. The notes give a brief explanation about the valence shell being the outermost shell of an atom containing valence electrons involved in bonding, and add a question regarding the prediction of valence electrons and chemical reactivity based on an element's position in the periodic table.

Advantages and disadvantages of annotating

Advantages

  • Allows for focus on a text, and even on a lecture.
  • Minimises the amount of time needed for taking notes.
  • It can easily integrate with other note-taking techniques.

Disadvantages

  • Risk of passive listening without actively processing or understanding the material.

Forthcoming training sessions

Forthcoming sessions on :

Taught students
Staff
Researchers
Show details & booking for these sessions

There's more training events at: