How I Annotate My Books

Hello and Welcome ✨ I have already made a youtube video about this on my channel, SlothReading but I figured I’d do a written post about it too.

I started annotating my books at the start of April as I saw that one of my favourite booktubers did it AND had a video on how they did it.

I thought it was just such a cool idea, I personally feel like it just connects me with the book more and allows me to remember more for my book reviews!

In my process, I use tabs, pens and sticky notes but you can honestly use whatever floats your boat!!

MY COLOUR CODING SYSTEM

So basically i’m just gonna bullet point what each colour on my tabs and underlining pens mean! When I find something to annotate in a book, i tab the page with the corresponding colour and underline the quote/words and sometimes write a little thought beside it.

PINK: things i love (moments/people/quotes)

ORANGE: important info that I want to remember/harry potter spells

GREEN: funny (moments/quotes/scenes)

BLUE: sad (moments)

YELLOW: shocking revelations and plot twists

DARK PURPLE: angry

LIGHT PURPLE: foreshadowing (little notes hinting at stuff that’s going to happen)

HOW I USE STICKY NOTES FOR REVIEWING

My other thing included in my annotation process is the use of square sticky notes. Every 50 or so pages I place a blank note (before i read the book) then when I read up to that note, I write about all my thoughts in the last 50 pages. This helps with writing detailed reviews and also is a way to see how close/far off your predications for the book were. (i’m mostly far off but it’s pretty fun to see after)

and that’s basically how i annotate my books !! i absolutely adore this method and it has helped me reviews be more detailed and descriptive in the recent months which i love!!

Do you annotate your books? What’s your process? Let me know in the comments below!!