Annotation+-+What+NOT+to+Do

Annotation

**What NOT To Do**

**Don’t use a highlighter** – Quality marking isn’t done with a fat-tipped highlighter. You can’t write, which is an important part of marking the text, with a large marker. Get yourself some fine point colored pens to do the job.

**Don’t mark large volumes of text** – You want important points to stand out. Although we all know that everything can’t be important, we often highlight all of the text on the page. You want to find the 20% of the text that is important (remember Pareto?) and mark that.

**Don’t take the time to mark up items that you read on a daily basis** – (e.g., magazines, newspapers), unimportant or irrelevant items.

**Don’t mark the obvious** – Don’t waste time marking up things that are already in your knowledge-base or skill set. If you already know it, you don’t need to mark it.