Discussion How I Annotate My Books

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I have been occasionally posted a photo of my books on my insta story in my personal Instagram account. So, one day, I received DM-ed from a few friends in my personal Instagram account asked me, 'what are the sticky notes for? and why do you tab in a novel you read?'. I told them that is for something important and/or quotes that I like and it helps me to review the books. So, today I decided to share with you on 'How I Annotate My Books'.  


Before I start, let me share with you the meaning of Annotate

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, Annotate means to add a short explanation or opinion to a text or drawing.
Truthfully, I never annotate my novel before. Well, that is because I don't feel like I need to tab anything until when I read A Court of Thorn and Roses by Sarah J. Maas. There are a lot of words that are so new to me and I need to jot down the meaning of those words and then I found things that I love in the books that I need to put the tabs on but I'm not yet using any sticky tabs or sticky notes instead I write it down on my notebook which is kind of complicated to do so as you have to write the page number which lines it is. So, I stop doing that and go to the bookstore to find stationery that will help me annotate my books. Here is the stationery that I use to annotate my books



☄ 5 colors of sticky notes with post-it notes☄ 4 colors of Post-it notes (I have run out of the pink one)☄ 7 colors of Toy Story Sticky Notes that I bought from Daiso (but I only use 6 colors)☄ Blue and Black Pens that won't bleed when I write on my Post-It notes
These are all important stationery that I use. I love them all. It sticks well on the book and does not have any residue when I want to change the place of that sticky notes

Anyway, I'm all excited to stick it on my books and at first, I just simply tab the pages using all the colors without any means. Meaning there is no system. Let's say, I want to share the quotes that I like from the books but I have no idea where it was and which pages it is. Funnily, I was annoyed with myself

It takes some time until I finally found the right way of using my sticky notes. I finally found the best way to organize all the colors and what every color is for. That makes me happy. Here's mine;


I'm using two different sticky notes for different books. For the plain sticky notes, I usually use it for a fantasy, sci-fi, contemporary books. While, the Toy Story one is for a romance, cute contemporary books. Whichever sticky notes, it all depends on my mood to use which. So, yeah

Here are what I use for each color;
✨ Pink is for love. Things I love, romantic words, cute stuff✨ Yellow is for important thing that I found in the books whether the plots/moments also for characters description
✨ Blue for things that makes me sad✨ Green is for favourite quotes and funny things✨ Orange is for something that I need to found why like why that happened? or what actually happened? Also, for any idioms or any metaphor uses in the books
✨ Purple (for the toy story sticky notes) is for funny/humorous things

I never write anything on my books because I, personally do not like it hence the uses of Post-It notes. That's so helpful and I love writing on it. New words that I found or sometimes, I write things like 'oh, how that happened?' or 'omg! that's so cute. you are my favourite characters' and so many other things

Ever since I found this amazing system to follow on, I have been happily annotating all my books and that also truly very helpful for me to write my review. I just go back to that particular color sticky notes and refer to them and write my review. ❤
Doing this makes me remember that I always annotate my textbooks back when I was doing my undergraduate study. I use to highlight, writing short notes on my book that will help me to answer my exam/quiz/test. Honestly, by doing that, it is really helpful especially using those beautiful colorful pens. That time I just write it on my textbooks not on a piece of paper or post-it notes because I feel that is so cool to write on my textbook for me to refer it back when I need them. But never on my novel. 🙈
There are how I annotate my books that makes me reading journey more fun and easy to refer to when I want to review my books or occasionally discussing with my sister about it. I really do enjoy doing it

That's all from me. See you in my next post


Have you ever annotate your books? How do you do it?

Share you thoughts/opinion in the comment down below

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