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Hey, everybody, glad you're back. And still with us talking about exhaustively talking about and annotation types. So the last episode covered the first two types, which were summary and response. And just to offer a brief recap, summary and annotations offer brief, objective overviews of reading, and response, and annotations, simply capture your reaction to the work as a whole. Now, of course, last time, we realized that there's a lot more to it than just those brief couple of summative statements. But they're useful, right? In fact, you might think of those couple of statements reviewing what we went over last time, as a kind of summary annotation, you know, what I did was, give you the essence, again, of what we talked about in in depth last time. And since you've already read that, or you know, listen to it, your memory was jogged right. And at least you were probably able to locate where you are now in this episode, but in this episode as part of a larger discussion, about critical reading, but now specifically in this sub area of end annotations. So just, you know, brief statements, for summaries, responses, these are different, they capture your reactions. But ultimately, we realize that they're very useful for starting writing about something if we don't really know how to start even talking about it. And we said that if we were confused, we asked the question like, Why were we confused by say, this particular passage in the reading, and then from there, you can interrogate your confusions any points of fuzzy comprehension or even just absence of, of comprehension? When we go back into the text itself, and look for those points that catalyze our confusion, that is to say, that didn't really register with us or resonate in a familiar way that would, you know, cause us to feel like, okay, I got it. I got I get this idea, right. So we go back into the text, and we try and figure out where those places are, what are those points? We interrogate them, we put pressure on? Why they catalyze in the ways that they did instead of the ways that we would have preferred question asking, especially in the form of annotating. So writing those questions down recording those questions, and then recording what unfolds from the question deepens our engagement with these readings, and is especially useful for difficult readings, because we then have a method of accessing these readings that we we would call difficult that is to say that we would not think we could have access to because belief or limit imposed upon our perception of what we think we're capable of understanding of our capacity to engage with certain ideas, and topics and subjects, and knowledge areas and disciplinary fields. And what we choose to study and the classes we might find an interest in taking. And I mean, this goes all the way outward to different career paths. These are different lives, like really, different lives, real for real lives, that can results or not result at all, not even be possible, from what we perceive our limits to be. And you know, what the real tragedy would be if these limits were self imposed barriers that could even constitute what you believe about yourself. And what you believe about yourself tends to show up as your default answer or your default response to certain situations. Like if you believe that you can't write or if you've always said to yourself that I'm not good at writing than when you have to write that paper for that class. Or if you have to take that English composition class as part of your core curricula. What do you think your response is going to be when you're given that assignment to do some writing? It could be the case that you're setting yourself up for failure. Or you could make a change. You could see this kind of assignment as an opportunity
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to think differently about writing my book require you to think differently about yourself, which means you got to make a different move.
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But this also shows you that you have a choice, you can make the same move, your default, one that'll put you up against that wall again
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are you can make a different move, it's up to you, it's your choice. And instead of that overwhelming loudness, that belief that just drowns out all the other sounds, you can just turn the volume down on it, you can mute it, you can turn it all the way off, you can shut down the system that's supporting that loudness. And then you might just hear the possibilities that it was obscuring the whole time. Think about that? Think about that, with regard to something you've read recently? Maybe with some writing that you're doing or you've done recently? And what you've described as difficult or hard or not easy? What do you mean by it was difficult? What do you mean by it was hard, it was not easy. If you found the reading difficult, or if you found the writing difficult. Let's call that finding your outcome of experience. Now ask yourself this, is there a relationship with or a connection between my outcome of experience and my initial perception or my evaluation of what would eventually lead to that outcome of experience of the process that will create that particular experience. But suppose you change your perception, you alter your disposition at the starting point or even before you start so that it's not a predisposition anymore. But as such is instead a disposition that is open to change. And so this time, instead of my outcome of experience being I just didn't get that reading because it was too hard. And because it was too hard, I couldn't understand it. And because I couldn't understand it, I didn't comprehend it. And because I didn't comprehend it, which did not pair well at all with the fact that I had to write about it, yada, yada, yada, you know exactly where this train is going. It's going to an outcome of experience that you don't want. So what are we going to do about it? What are we going to do about this journey that does not work out? Well, I think that we should totally take a different journey, man. We're going to try this whole question asking thing and see what happens. So let's start by getting a feel for what these question type and annotations are supposed to do. What do they typically do? Question Type and annotations will typically address the sources clarity, purpose, or effectiveness. Alright, so typically, they address the sources clarity, purpose, or effectiveness, and your questions, they might address the readings claims, evidence or reasoning. Its syntax, its tone, its structure, its diction, its style, its form, its use of genre, the list goes on. And then you have other questions which might address things like the readings relationship to what you already know about the topic or what you have already read, what you've been told, what you know, from experience, things like that. These questions will help you draw connections between the readings and your own knowledge and experience. Okay. But then there are still other questions which might indicate specific aspects of a topic that you still need to investigate, or links between two or more authors claims that need further considerations. You can kind of shape and structure these question type and annotations to help you connect a reading to an ongoing piece of writing that you're working on. So you might ask, like, I wonder how his ideas might have an impact on part two of my paper, do I need to reconsider? Do I need to look into this more? You know, these are the kinds of questions that could help you link a reading into something you're already working on. Or if you've already been consulting One source and you come across another one. And for example, there appears to be some friction between what this new source says and the source that you've already been using. Do what you can to materialize that observation into something useful, hopefully into something usable.
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So you could ask like, does this new source refutes what my other source has been saying? Is there a larger conversation that may be shaping here, and suddenly, you're doing more than just using one source, you're starting to construct meaning among sources. Let me let me offer an analogy on this point, if I could. It's like the difference between an infant's first word, and their first sentence is first word is one word as a single representation of meaning. But his first sentence is multiple words. And instead of just multiple representations of meaning, it's, it's more than that it's a construction of these different representations of meaning, which together assemble into a higher meaning. A sentence is a meaningful construction of not necessarily more than but something other than just the sum of its parts. A sentence is a meaningful construction of something other than just the sum of its parts. And the same way as source based essay uses its sources, which were like the words in the analogy, to assemble into something other than just a collection of summation is going beyond summary. Okay, this is going beyond the summary. And making connections between things between the sources between the concepts that they address between the author and the author, his experience of doing the writing, and what the author knows about the concepts that are being addressed. And, you know, anything and everything, it's all about going beyond summarizing. It's about going beyond the isolated thing. And from there, you analyze and you make connections, and you reveal the network between the isolation, you know, its language, its social, you know, realize this language is social. It's a social phenomenon. And one form that language has been phenomenal. alized into is the written word. So remember this, when you're reading and you just feel disconnected from the text. Just try being social with it, you know, try to connect with the text. And don't hesitate to use any of these methods of marking texts. Because together, you know, whether it's highlighting, annotating any of the various forms or combinations of forms, can help you fully understand a reading and enable you to connect with it and determine not only just ways to use it, but the best ways to use it in your own writing and bring it into your own work.
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