A page covered in underlining can be surprisingly unhelpful a month later. It tells you that something mattered, but not whether you admired the sentence, doubted the argument or simply did not understand it.
Try giving three small marks separate jobs. A question mark means you need clarification. A brief “claim” note identifies what the writer is asking you to accept. A personal reaction belongs in your notebook, where there is room to explain it. The symbols themselves are not important; consistency is.
Annotate one paragraph twice
On the first reading, record only what the paragraph appears to say. On the second, add your response. For example, “The narrator says the town welcomed the stranger” is an observation about the text. “I do not trust this narrator because the next scene contradicts that welcome” is an interpretation supported by a reason.
This distinction helps with nonfiction too. “The author links two events” is different from “The first event caused the second.” Mark the evidence offered before accepting the stronger claim. If you need outside information, write a specific research question instead of filling the gap with a guess.
Keep page references and the edition in your notebook. Pagination can change between printings, and a quotation copied without its surrounding sentence can mislead you later. For library or borrowed books, use separate notes rather than writing on the page. Avoid sticky materials on fragile or valuable volumes.
At the end of a chapter, choose one annotation worth developing and leave the rest alone. You do not need to convert every reaction into an essay. A good note preserves a useful conversation with the text; it does not prove that you worked hard enough by making the page look busy.