Annotating Your Way into Academic Discourse – Key Terms (Vocabulary)

Notes on Annotating Your Way into Academic Discourse (Chapters 1–2)

What Is Academic Discourse?

• Academic discourse = how scholars speak and write in formal, precise, and relatively complex ways.

• You already have some experience:

  • High school writing: more formal than texting or casual emails.

  • Class discussions: more formal and precise than everyday conversations.

• College expectations: further develop formal, precise, and sophisticated communication across disciplines (Biology, English, Psychology, etc.).

• Goal: insert your own voice into scholarly conversations, not just summarize others’ words.

• In the past, some instructors discouraged “opinion” or using “I” in writing; becoming comfortable with voice is important for active participation.

• Annotating (Chapter 1) integrates reading and writing, laying the foundation for scholarly contributions.

• Annotations mark engagement with a text: questions, comments, reactions, and interactions with the author.

• Annotations can be the basis for longer essay responses; you can revisit annotations to develop deeper arguments.

• Annotations can be handwritten on print or applied digitally (with tools like The Best of Technology series readings and the provided link).

• Digital annotation offers benefits: accessibility across computers and sharing capabilities; instructions cited in the Introduction for using digital annotation tools.

What Is Annotation?

• Annotating = marking up a text with notes as you read.

• Etymology: annotate comes from Latin meaning “to note or mark.”

• Annotation = writing as you read: notes, comments, reactions, questions in margins; reflections of engagement with text/author.

• Annotations anchor preliminary interactions that can grow into detailed responses later.

• Practical use: when writing an essay about a reading, you can return to your annotations to recall questions and comments.

• Annotation methods:

  • On printed texts: handwritten marks.

  • On digital texts: digital highlights and comments; can access from any device and share with others.

• Instructional example: a link to a digital annotated text (requires a free account) demonstrates how annotations align with highlighting.

• If not annotating digitally, you may print readings and annotate by hand (sample approach referenced).

Differences Between Annotating and Highlighting

• Highlighting focuses on marking important parts to aid recall.

• Annotating includes highlighting plus comments, questions, and written responses that reflect deeper engagement.

• Highlighting alone is often better for memorization rather than for producing analytical writing.

• Annotations provide a foundation for entering scholarly conversations across college courses.

Foundational Idea: Annotations as a Basis for Scholarly Conversations

• Annotations are initial, concrete forms of participation in a text; they evolve into broader scholarly contributions.

• They help you see how you think and how you construct meaning as you read.

Chapter 2: Developing a Repertoire of Reading Strategies

• What is a repertoire? A collection or catalog of reading strategies you can practice across chapters.

• Chapter 2 serves as a resource listing and describing strategies; Part Two applies them to readings.

• Strategies are useful across genres and media; names may vary, but purpose remains.

• Mindful reading: reflect on why you read and which strategies fit that purpose.

• Annotation remains a key tool to track reading and link reading to writing.

• The more strategies you practice, the better prepared you will be to read a broad range of texts.

• Ponder This prompts reflect on differences between reading for school vs. pleasure and how to describe your reading purposes.

Choosing a Reading Strategy: The Importance of Purpose

• Before selecting a strategy, determine your reading purpose:

  • Summarize the text

  • Compare texts

  • Use the text as a source in a research paper

  • Design a multimodal project

  • Imitate an author’s style

• Purpose guides which strategy is most productive for a given task.

• Some strategies better illuminate an argument; others reveal text organization or design.

• Poetry vs. informational texts may benefit from different strategies.

• As you practice, reflect on how well each strategy works; mindful reading involves close attention to how strategies function.

• Annotations help track reading and connect writing and reading practices; annotations act as written drafts of understanding and responses.

• Apply different strategies to the same texts to articulate how reading experiences vary across methods.

• Your annotations demonstrate how you interact with a text through multiple reading experiences.

• Ponder This: Why do you read for school vs. pleasure? Can you list purposes for each? How do they compare?

The Reading Strategies – Previewing

• Previewing = a quick scan of a text to understand surrounding context and structure before deep reading.

• What you look for during preview:

  • Title, author, any summary/abstract

  • General design and structure: headings, images, hyperlinks

  • Genre: informational vs. literary, poetry vs. play vs. article vs. blog, etc.

• Genre guides reading approach; schemas play a role: schemas are prior-knowledge frameworks that shape how you read.

• Example of schemas: if a text starts with “Once upon a time,” you likely expect a fairy tale with familiar elements (prince, princess, castle, dragon, happily-ever-after).

• Previewing helps you orient yourself; later, you’ll supplement with deeper strategies to understand the text.

• You apply previewing by annotating the schemas and the aspects that help you understand the text.

Practice Previewing (Bransford and Johnson exercise)

• A set of paragraphs about a task (e.g., “laundry”) is provided, with and without a heading “Laundry.”

• The heading acts as a schema cue that helps readers understand the paragraphs; without it, comprehension and recall may be poorer.

• This experiment shows how headings/schema influence comprehension and memory.

• Exercise prompt: read similar paragraphs, anticipate schemas, test comprehension with and without headings, and discuss which schemas were most important.

Skimming

• Skimming = reading quickly to get a general sense of content rather than deep understanding.

• When to skim:

  • Early-stage research to identify sources relevant to your topic

  • Later stages if you determine a source is useful but you don’t yet need close interaction with it

• Skimming often precedes deeper reading; annotate while skimming by noting:
  1) Elements from previewing (title, author, abstract, structure, graphics, hyperlinks)
  2) The introduction (often describes the piece as a whole)
  3) The first sentence of each paragraph (often topic sentences)
  4) The conclusion/final paragraph (often summarizes the piece)

• The Says/Does approach is introduced later as another way to analyze text as you skim.

Practice Skimming

• Exercise: skim a page in a textbook; skim three online movie reviews to gauge how much you know after skim reading and what questions remain.

The Says/Does Approach

• Purpose: distinguish between what a text says (content) and what it does (how it functions to persuade or operate).

• This approach helps you see how a paragraph or section accomplishes its aims beyond its literal content.

• Example scenario: a paragraph on bee mating may present a claim but also serve to undermine or challenge a claim by presenting opposing views.

• Annotate paragraph-by-paragraph to capture both what it says and what it does.

• The approach helps prevent misattributing all ideas to the author and clarifies the text’s persuasive mechanics.

Practice the Says/Does Approach

1) Annotate the first ten paragraphs of a reading from this textbook using the says/does framework.
2) From your says/does annotations, create an overview (paragraph or outline) describing what each paragraph is doing and how the piece functions as a whole.

Rhetorical Reading

• Rhetoric = the available means of persuasion in a text.

• Read rhetorically to observe how elements influence you as you read, and to learn how to use similar rhetoric in your own writing or multimodal projects.

• Four rhetorical elements to watch for (asked as questions):
  1) What is the author’s purpose? Is the author arguing a point, bringing attention to a problem, describing an experience, or calling for action?
  2) Who is the intended audience?
  3) What are the author’s claims and what kinds of claims are they (factual, normative, causal, etc.)?
  4) What kinds of evidence are used (scientific data, anecdotes, personal experience, etc.)?

• Annotate with these questions in mind to identify purpose, audience, claims, and evidence.

Aristotle’s Appeals (Ethos, Logos, Pathos)

• Ethos: Appeals to credibility; how the author establishes trust and authority.

• Logos: Appeals to logic; how the argument is structured and supported by reasoning and evidence.

• Pathos: Appeals to emotion; how the text engages readers’ feelings.

Practice Rhetorical Reading

• Task: choose any piece of writing (digital or print) and answer the four questions about purpose, audience, claims, and evidence.

The Believing/Doubting Game

• Developed by Peter Elbow; encourages reading with two roles:

  • Believer: read as if you believe the argument; annotate reasons why you would believe.

  • Doubter: return to the text to identify problems or faults; annotate where you doubt the writer’s position.

• Purpose: understand one’s own beliefs, and understand why others hold opposing views; this also clarifies where you stand on an issue.

Practicing the Believing/Doubting Game

1) Visit a site with an opposing view (e.g., if you support stronger gun control, visit NRA site). Read with an open posture to understand the opposing side.
2) Write a letter from the believer’s perspective outlining the beliefs and rationale, then reflect on new information and whether it affects your own stance.

Reading Like a Writer (RLW)

• Origin: Charles Moran (1990) and Mike Bunn (Writing Spaces, 2011) expanded the idea that you should read with an eye toward how writers make choices.

• RLW focuses on writerly techniques and stylistic choices, not just content understanding.

• Key idea: observe how authors begin, end, and structure their pieces; notice shifts between formal and informal language, dialogue, quotations, etc.

• Central questions for each moment in a text:

  • What is the technique the author is using here?

  • Is this technique effective?

  • What are the advantages and disadvantages of using this technique in your own writing?

• RLW is useful when you’re asked to imitate an author’s writing or design techniques in your own work, including multimodal projects.

Practice Reading Like a Writer

1) Read a passage from this textbook and answer the three RLW questions.
2) Look up reviews (movies, books, products) and imitate the reviewer’s approach in a new piece; compare how closely your version mirrors the model.

Reading and Evaluating Online Sources

• Online reading emphasizes credibility and source evaluation rather than content comprehension alone.

• Questions to evaluate credibility and suitability of online sources:
  1) Domain type: .com, .org, .gov, .edu, etc.
  2) Know the author: who sponsors the site? If no author, check WHOIS information.
  3) Peer-review status: is the piece peer-reviewed? (Check the journal’s publisher and its credibility.)
  4) Bibliography: does the piece include sources? What kinds of sources are cited?
  5) Citations: are there cited sources or references?

• Practice:
  1) Choose an online article and annotate it using the five questions above.
  2) Review your annotations to identify any gaps; develop a plan to fill those gaps.

For Further Reading (References Mentioned)

• Bransford, John D. and Marcia K. Johnson. Contextual Prerequisites for Understanding: Some Investigations of Comprehension and Recall. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, vol. 11, 1972, pp. 717–726.

• Bunn, Mike. How to Read Like a Writer. Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, Volume 2, Parlor Press, 2011, pp. 71–86. http://www.parlorpress.com/pdf/bunn--how-to-read.pdf

• Moran, Charles. Reading Like a Writer. Vital Signs 1, edited by James L. Collins, Boynton/Cook, 1990, pp. 60–69.

• Santiago, Héctor C. Visual Mapping to Enhance Learning and Critical Thinking Skills. Optometric Education, vol. 36, no. 3, 2011, pp. 125–195.

Mapping, Visual Tools, and Revision

• Mapping as a visual tool helps organize information and show relationships among text elements (e.g., argument, evidence, characters).

• Visual maps can be created by hand or with software; the most common form is a web/radial map with a central idea and radiating connections.

• Mapping helps reveal connections not obvious in linear reading and highlights relationships that may require revision as you read more.

• Annotations support mapping by directing attention to elements to represent visually.

• Example given: mapping a text on rape culture; placing “rape culture” at the center and surrounding related issues to visualize causes, connections, and challenges.

• Important note: maps are living artifacts; revise and expand them as you read and re-read the text.

Practice Mapping

1) Choose a reading from this textbook; annotate its first two pages using a reading strategy of your choice, then develop a map from your annotations.
2) Read the next four pages (six pages total) and revise your map accordingly.

The Practical Value of These Strategies

• The combination of annotation, previewing, skimming, says/does analysis, rhetorical reading, RLW, and mapping creates a comprehensive toolkit for college-level reading and writing.

• These strategies help you enter scholarly conversations with your own voice, evaluate credibility, and design informed, well-structured written and multimodal work.

• Throughout, reflect on your purposes for reading and writing; use annotation to make the reading process visible and trackable.

End of notes. The content above covers the material as presented in Chapters 1 and 2 of the transcript, including key concepts, examples, strategies, and suggested practices.