Finally got around to it...

For the summer reading I started with Heart of Darkness.

As for my style of annotation, there wasn't a lot of consistency throughout the book. I tried writing notes in a separate notebook of things I found significant or words I didn't understand (there were plenty of those). I wrote down the page numbers the words and comments came from so if I need a reference it would be easy to find.

Writing down the words I didn't understand in a separate notebook didn't really help. I think the best way for me to deal with words I don't understand is to look them up immediately after I read them and write the meaning in the margin of the book.

On the other hand writing down lines or words that stuck out to me really helped. It reminded me of some things I read in the book and helped me make connections or think about the author's purpose of the line or the tone they were trying to set. I think writing the comments in a separate notebook helped me so much because I could look back over them quickly and it reminded me of a certain part in the book.

For example, from page four, I wrote down, "They were men enough to face the darkness", as well as, "your strength is just and accident arising from the weakness of others". These lines really stuck out to me and when I was reading back over my notes before I decided to finally get around to posting something, I read those lines again and it reminded me of how people went crazy after so long in the Belgian Congo and all the imperialism taking place and the struggles with the boat and the natives, etc. Reading books for me is like riding a bicycle, if I like the book I never forget it, and reading over my notes is like getting back on the bicycle, once I get going, it all comes back to me.