Review Strategies and Taking Notes

[KDJ]

I take handwritten notes and use the notebook in the kindle app on computer and phone. The Kindle app can be synced so I can get to my notes with little problem. I started this 2 months ago and it has worked well enough for me.

[eastandalchemy]

I agree that while I enjoy reading a physical book instead of an ebook, the highlighting feature on my kindle has been such a time saver and I don't feel guilty about marking up books (especially the ones I plan to donate).

[clint_csperry-org]

I generally keep an open word document in the background as I am writing. When something comes up that has nothing to do with my current WIP or the current piece of my WIP I'll make a note there. If I don't, one of two things will happen. Either I will forget the thought completely, (this happens most often) or it drives me crazy by interrupting the thought process until I do something about it. Sometimes it's just a note to verify that what I just wrote is consistent with something I wrote a few days or weeks ago.

[Nisha Ward]

I combine the kindle's functions and handwritten notes. For errors and noted quotes I use the different coloured highlights and then every 100 pages/1000 locations or so I write down the things I've noticed about the book.

[Afturnitsa]

Although I'm still reading the first book that I will review, I've discovered that note taking isn't necessary for me, at least with this book. I'm designing my review process as I go. That is, I'm constantly thinking about the guidelines for writing a review. For instance, how do I summarize what I've read and what do I like the most and least so far. I've decided that every book I review will start with five stars.
Also, I use what I know about the art of creating stories to analyze what I'm reading. For example, does the character change at the end? and do I care about the protagonist?.

[RawRis1124]

I'm thankful I found this topic. I started highlighting points I want to revisit, errors, characters' names, etc., but the idea of using different colors for each category didn't occur to me. I'll start doing that to be more organized.

[Ngozi Onyibor]

I only take note of errors, I believe I write better in retrospect.

[clint_csperry-org]

For me, I think it depends a lot on the story. Often I will open a word document in the background and as I read and I have some thought about what I just read, I'll jot it down. This seems to help me later. However, I've been doing a lot of the police action stories lately, and most of them are straight forward. I read fairly quickly so I find I don't need notes so much when the story is well written. I get an overall sense of what the author has done, and how they have done it. I try to relay that in my reviews.

[Inkroverts]

I use Evernote to write reviews on books that only come with pdf/ epub format. But I didn't know I could write notes within the Kindle App! Thanks for the tips, guys!