What is your annotation/highlighting strategy?

One aspect of my highlighting is that I outline various parts of a book with highlighters. I have three highlighters set to do first, second, and third levels of  outlining like this:

A sample from a book I am currently reading:

I find that doing this helps me immensely both in comprehending what I read and quickly picking up the argument in a book when I come back to it later.

I used to do resource-specific highlighting but found it too unwieldy to maintain after some time. Now I just stick to palette-specific notes and use the search functions to find resource-specific annotations.

In terms of strategy, I think that is subjective to you. Some like different colors, others use the emphasis palette more. I try to keep it simple and stick to two or three primary colors, and a double-underline.

I use a file for each assignment or sermon. For highlighting I employ a colour scheme which works like this.

Yellow = Interesting

Blue = Critical to Mention

Green = Critical to their argument ie. a premise, discovery or piece of argument.

Red = I disagree with this

The one thing I find annoying is that if I make highlights on the mac app then the notes do not contain the full text of the highlight. On the ipad they do which I much prefer.

I have notes files which are related to regular topics that I will revisit often. My own areas of interest or common sermon material etc. I often open those notes to add to them when reading for other things.

Joseph Turner said:

 do you mark?  Why?  and How?"

My strategy is deliberately simple and spartan:

1.  I highlight anything that strikes my fancy, impresses me deeply, or addresses some facet of my life that needs work.  I'm an equal opportunity highlighter in both Bibles and commentaries as well as non-versified monographs, etc.  I don't discriminate against any color in the available palette.... one might interpret that as not assigning any particular color to any particular theme.

2.  I do notes somewhat differently in that I use the note icon that looks like a sticky note, but colored purple with an exclamation point in it for sermon outlines from my pastor.  All of these are in a separate note file, and each preacher that I collect a sermon from gets their own note file, but all share the purple sticky note with the "!" icon which tells me at a glance that a sermon lives here.

3.  All books have their own note file, and all share the same default appearance of Logos note files.

Bruce Dunning said:

Do you have specific definitions/rules that you use for each of these categories?

It all depends on the book and the size of the section that I am highlighting. When I see a main or important point I highlight that in green. Then I highlight the sub points of that main point in orange. If there are sub-sub points, they get yellow. Here's a couple more examples:

—————————————————

Joseph Turner said:

I was reading something in another thread and something came up that I am curious about.  What is your strategy for using annotations/notes/mark-ups/highlighting when reading a book in Logos or other digital platforms?  I can't utilize these tools effectively because I don't have a standard system, so I am curious to know what others do.

I guess my basic question would be, "What do you mark?  Why?  and How?"

Regarding highlighting, I only highlight something for a temporary reason such as something I want to check after I've finished what I'm then doing.  Otherwise, I have one rule:  Just don't do it.  I do take notes which I generally organize on the basis of passages—e.g., Re 1 (entire chapter with separate entries for each verse or phrase).  Sometimes I will create a note file on a subject which is then linked to a note file (something on the order of an excursus).

I had a business professor at ASU, Dr. Claude Olney, who developed  and marketed study systems for students. He contended that students were wrong with highlighting.  Everyone tends to highlight the points that they thought were important.  Instead, he said that you should highlight the things that caught you by surprise or that you didn't know.

I think maybe a separate palate for "surprises" might be in order.  The "important" stuff is good for a quick review, but the "surprises" are things you will want to locate later, as well.

For our type of reading things we "didn't know" many times fall into the category of things we need to hold in abeyance and check for later.  This also seems to be for a different palate which can be searched.

____________

So that my notes files are readable, I (1) copy the entire context of interesting material onto the clipboard, (2) highlight, as a note, the succinct blurb which will also become the title in the notes file, (3) paste the entire context into the note, and (4) add my own comments to the note.  This strategy also works well on mobile tablets.

I am  a very intensive high-lighter.  my system isn't formal, but it is fairly consistent--although it has evolved over time, so I am constantly "updating" style.  It reaches it's zenith in Bible texts.

PENS:

Blue is North, or Greek.

Brown is Gentile

Gray is South or Israel

Green is happy/good

Orange is reference or disciples or church

Pink is caution

purple is God, also "the plan"

red is bad/evil/satan

yellow is general interest or key thought

EMPH

blue underline is used to tie together like things, but also is used for empire reference

bold is attention

single line box is words I didn't know and had to look up

doubleline is to tie together like points or indicate a progressive series

green underline is good

large text is verse reference or big point...or BEHOLD

newline is to make commentaries easier to read (lists)

fire is judgement

orange outline is apostles

orange wavy is to tie together key points

outline is to tie together key points

pencil is to show words in a theme

red underline is badness

shadow is to tie together key points

triple underline is to tie together key points or show a progression

yellow glow is numbered lists, key thought, or tie together

3blue is to tie together key thoughts and indicate empire

3jags is to tie together key points

biblical basis is to flag commentaries that seem to go loopy in places

blue outline ties together points

blue wavy ties together points or empires

brown jag is nearly always roman empire, but can also tie together points

brownoutline is Pail

brown wavy is tie together points or empire

clipped meant I had more self-generated notes

gray out is Saul (aka Paul)

green wavy is Lamb of God, or tie together points

Holy Act is something about God (attribute, act, etc)

line brown ties together

line light blue tie together

line light orange ties together

N Blue Dash is northern empire

Organce wavy ties together

pink under is false prophet

purplse is real prophet

purple out is Christ, or tie together

red glow is part of Ant. Ephipanes

red rippled is part of empire

S dash Gray is Southern Empire

single underline is Command or to indiacate beginning of progression

strikeblue traces Israel tribe by mom

strike brown traces Israel tibe by mom

strike light blue traces Israel tribe by mom/consort

strike light orange traces Israel tribe by mom/consort

time is time

typo is type that I have replorted

wavyblack is empire or tie together

wavy brown is family from mom

wavy dark blue is family from mom

wavy light blue is family from mom/consort

wavy light organge is family from mom/consort

wordstudy is an indicator to dig deeper into original lang

yellowish is Angel

kings bad, by North or South, or general King

Sick is a person who had issues and a miracle happened

---------------

I could go on, but you get the point...  hope it helps

I use mine almost identically. For highlights I have a Bible palette and a non-Bible palette.

My Bible palette has highlights for 'Word(s) of Interest', 'Studied' etc.
My Non-Bible highlights have three generic purpose highlights: 'General Interest', 'Excellent', 'Quotes' and will add more as needed.

For notes, for each non-bible/commentary resource I will create a note at the table of contents level for each chapter and write notes for each chapter using those notes and reserve the text for highlights. I do create a new note file for each book using a 'Recourse Study' layout named after that recourse..
For my Bible notes I am unsure if I will use a note at each verse, or create a note at the chapter level and work from there. Regardless, they are all kept in a 'Bible Study' notes document

I use clippings for topics such as the 'Trinity' or 'Moravian Church' (most recent) as a repository of quotes and notes on those topics.

I am working on using Word Lists somehow with my 'Word(s) of Interest' Highlight.

I've played around with visual filters, but stopped using them.  Perhaps if I was stronger in original languages I'd be more inclined to use them more.

Joseph Turner said:

"What do you mark?  Why?  and How?"

I've read through this thread -gleaning some tips here and there- and came up with this palette.

I am going to try using a new note for each resource, as many have recommended.  I'm liking putting labels in capsules for further annotation. 

Does anyone know how I can copy (bible)texts including the highlighting to Word?

I like to use the highlighting tool, but in the end I want to copy this to another document, I don't manage to include the highlights in copying.

I hope you can help.

Regards,

Karen

Thank you.

So printing to pdf is the solution. That will help me, didn't think about this simple solution.

Regards,
Karen

I just created a system of highlights based on the Socio-Rhetorical method of Scripture analysis (the the inner texture part). Since this is primarily for preparing an exegesis of a passage, I create the notes only in one Bible, that way they don't clutter up my reading Bibles.

Here is the highlighting scheme:

Here is an example of these highlights are work.

I use a traffic light system - red for things I disagree with, yellow for ok with caveats, green for I like.

I use the symbols to categorise them for importance - the more sides the more important.  Triangle is not very important, square is moderately important, star is the most important.  

This is simple but I find a helpful starting point.

DrGregWaddell said:

Schumitinu:

Probably the best introduction to it is Vernon Robbins' Exploring the Texture of Texts.

https://www.amazon.com/Exploring-Texture-Texts-Socio-Rhetorical-Interpretations/dp/1563381834/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1490277461&sr=8-3&keywords=socio-rhetorical+criticism 

Thanks, I'll look at it

bump

bump for my files

Everett Headley said:

The version doesn't matter, all my notes on each verse show up

I've tried this and love it, and am planning to follow your lead in moving my notes into Logos. However, I'm finding that the notes also show up in commentaries (and presumably other books referencing the verses). I've only been doing this for a day or two, but already have a few dozen notes on verses in Isaiah 40-55. These are fine in the Bible, but the commentaries often refer to the whole range Isaiah 40-55 and I then get multiple yellow notes icons, one for each verse I put a note on. I can imagine that I'll have a whole screen full of note icons on that range before I finish this project. Did you find that issue, and any workaround?

Everett Headley said:

What's better is with the hyperlinks and citations, I always know where what came from which is super cool.

I couldn't make the hyperlinks and citations work. How did you do that?

How do you do this, “Then I designed the Libronix relative to 256/color in the VirtualBox and traced that into Logos5 for import if I want.”?

James Taylor said:

Joseph Turner said:

"What do you mark?  Why?  and How?"

I've read through this thread -gleaning some tips here and there- and came up with this palette.

I am going to try using a new note for each resource, as many have recommended.  I'm liking putting labels in capsules for further annotation. 

Does anyone know how to make the label small? My bubble is too big, and it's quite hideous. Every time I click on "Capsule", all my formatting options are blanked out.

Bumping a great thread... especially with how powerful notes and highlighting palettes have become.