This semester, we were assigned many readings, not just to read, but to annotate and really think critically about what is being said in the article or essay. I’ll use the annotations I made on Sherry Turkle’s essay “The Empathy Diaries”. When it comes to annotating a reading, the first thing I do is skim over small segments at a time and look for anything that seems important. What I mean by skimming in small segments is reading by paragraph. Or, for example, in “The Empathy Diaries”, Turkle splits the essay into parts by labeling different parts like “A Partisan of Conversation” and “The Virtuous Circle”. After skimming, I go back and read it in its entirety, underlining parts that I find interesting and highlighting parts I feel hold more value to the overall point/message of the writing. The highlighted parts are also the parts that I find to be valuable discussion points to bring up and talk about once we are back in class and sharing what we took away from the reading, I may even use the highlighted sections as evidence when writing journals or papers. My approach to annotating papers shows my ability to read and understand a text and to critically read to find important information.