My approach to active, critical reading involves thinking about the text in a critical way. I tend to highlight and respond to parts of the text that I have questions about or do not agree with. As Susan Gilroy says, “annotating puts you actively and immediately in a ‘dialogue’ with an author and the issues and ideas you encounter in a written text.” I agree with her statement as having a conversation with the author helps me comprehend the text. One way I decide what to discuss is if I read a selection and it stands out to me in a way that allows me to challenge it. For example when annotating an essay by Jonah Lehrer, the line “we need to find a place for artists in the experimental process” stood out to me because it made me wonder how artists could contribute to the scientific process. This tells me that I am able to draw deeper questions from a selected reading, going beyond simply comprehending the text. Gilroy tells us to “mark up the margins of your text with words and phrases: ideas that occur to you, notes about things that seem important to you, reminders of how issues in a text may connect with class discussion or course themes.” I feel that by annotating multiple essays throughout the semester I have become much more experienced with these tasks.