Active Reading

1. Underline or highlight terms, phrases, and passages that seem important or interesting, especially if they are relevant to answering any reading questions provided.

2. Write a ? in the margin where the author seems to be saying something important that you don't understand, or that seems wrong or backward.

3. Write a word or two to yourself in the margins when you think of examples or other connected or explanatory ideas from some other work or from your own experience.

4. Mark key distinctions / contrasts ("this vs. that") or connections / comparison ("this is related or the same as that") by drawing arrows like <--> or --><-- in the margin.

5. Mark lines or passages that tell or suggest a story or progression with arrows like >-->

5. Indictate connections or apparent contradictions you see between statements on different pages by writing "see 59" (for connections) or "see 59?" (for apparent contradictions) in the margin.