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When you’re reading, you may want to enjoy the book — without regard to what is happening or who is making all the actions. But you’ll often find that you must remember specific details about the characters. Either you want to track the characters for your reasons, or you need to know those essential facts for your literature class: a research paper, essay, test, etc.
Whatever the reason for tracking characters, there are several tools you can use (or ways you can accomplish it)… Here are a few ideas:
- Evernoteis an easy-to-use tool for your smartphone and desktop computer, but it is powerful. You can also add the character description and details in a number of different ways: text, photo, or audio. It’s also quick and easy to reference and use the character’s quotes, annotations, and descriptive notes for later study (you can use tags but also sort and search the notes).
- Google Drive: Another tool is easily accessible from your smartphone, laptop, or desktop computer. It’s easy to add notes as you read along, and you can also easily incorporate the digital quotes by outputting them from your Kindle ebook.
- Book Journal: If you prefer to go without electronic tools, you can keep track of characters via a blank book or notebook. When you write the notes, descriptives and quotes — it’s often a great way to “drill” those content details into your memory.
- Underline & Marginalia: Sometimes, the tried-and-true methods still work great. You can use different highlighter colors to track each character and then take notes in the margins of the book. If you prefer ebooks, you can also highlight and make notes via many of the readers.
Whatever method of character tracking you select, you must be consistent.