The document reading system passively analyzes a document to generate margin or end notes of references to other documents that relate to annotated passages in the document or to the entire document. The invention is responsive to the annotation of a document to passively generate a query that retrieves documents that have similar content to the annotated passage. The retrieved documents are available to the reader through selectable links placed in the margin near the annotation. Additionally, the invention provides end notes with links to documents that are similar in content to the overall content of the annotated document. The invention assists the reader by passively generating selectable links to related documents to assist the user in relating the new document to previously read material.