I've often tried to analyze texts in my head, and have found it doesn't work very well. I also struggle with losing my annotations. If I annotate a copy of Tolstoy's War and Peace, by the time I'm on the next section I've forgotten where my annotations are. Because of this, when I'm trying to remember who one of the 500 plus characters is, I have no way of figuring it out using my notes. Organizing things in the way described by the author seems very useful.

I feel like note taking skills and annotation overlap a lot. I've always found that brief annotations and notes are more valuable than grammatically correct (and perhaps more complete) ones.

I'm not sure that this kind of argument without any sort of qualifying statement has much of a place anywhere. I feel like arguments from authority and authority alone are rarely appropriate.