https://phussey.uneportfolio.org/2019/01/31/helen-epstein/
My approach to active critical reading is when reading an article and find something that I feel is important, I highlight that part and annotate what it meant to me. Sometimes my annotation shows how I felt about it and if there was a text to self or a brief review of what I highlighted. I do these things so I can review the passage again without having to reread it. Another reason I annotate the way I do is due to the fact that some articles can be a little hard to understand. Especially if you are just reading a small portion compared to the whole article. As Susan Gilroy referred to this as “language that is meaningful to you”. Once you have read the whole article it becomes easier to piece it together. One of the biggest things to do when annotating and finding what is important is to find the main focus or point. This will make it so you are able to pick out parts of that article that match with the main point. Unfortunately, not every time you are able to find the point right off. Sometimes it is good to read the article without annotating or taking notes. This is so you are able to just focus on what you are reading to get a rough idea as to the point or main argument. After you have read it once, you can typically go through it again and be able to pick out what is surrounding the main point.
The reading for Helen Epstein was easy to see the main focus. With that in mind, it was easier to annotate with yellow highlighter being good information and I used an orange highlighter to indicate more crucial information. But for me having small notes on the side was far more important to me. I write the first thing that comes to mind after I read a section. Sometimes I write dollar signs which indicates to my future reading self that money was a big factor. Or sometimes something as simple the name of the organization that a specific paragraph was about.
In the future, I want to work on making my annotation stronger in the sense that I still feel like I need to read ever annotation over again. I think I will try and make a quick summary at the end to wrap up everything.
