I've been reading Mortimer J. Adler's How to Read a Book, and in section 5 he insists that writing in a book is necessary to get the most out of reading, and his points are sensible. However, I hate the idea of defacing a book. Is anyone aware of acceptable substitutes for this practice? Would writing notes in a notebook have the same effect?
I've been reading Mortimer J. Adler's How to Read a Book...
Andrew Williams
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Camden Watson
if you're that spergy just buy facsimilie copies for notes and another copy ?!
Daniel Lopez
>Would writing notes in a notebook have the same effect?
As long as you document the necessary details(or leave page numbers) then I dont see why it wouldn't have the same effect.
Matthew White
Ir's silly to dislike writing inside books. You don't have to do it as obnoxiously as in pic related. You should write both inside and outside the book. I actually really like when books have writing in them. It's like free and unique bonus material.
I'm bias, as I not only write in the white space, underline sentences and vertically line paragraphs, I also crease the pages to point to very important parts or pictures.
Anyways, I understand your concern. Write using an outside notebook.
How To Read A Book is kino, btw. Great stuff.
Aaron Walker
So the answer is, I really rarely write in my books. There are better things to be doing. :3
Grayson King
Poor / difficult to find copies of some of the works I have that I consider to be most important and worthy of heavy analysis. A decent idea, nonetheless.
Thank you both for your replies. This book, even though I haven't finished it, has changed the way I look at books, particularly the notion of inspectional reading. It's definitely cured some of my autism when it comes to the way that I read books, which have been serious roadblocks. I used to obsess over what I didn't understand, rereading it repeatedly hoping that a brute force attack would help somehow, which would stop be dead in my tracks. Definitely going to recommend it to every retard I know.
Lincoln Martinez
I feel the same way. I'm only about 1/5th of the way through and it's already changed the way I live my life. It has improved my real life listening and observation skills as well as my ability to discern truth and understanding. Also not necessarily related but I've seen the book mentioned 5 different times in the past day, but before this I've only heard it mentioned once or twice.
Adrian Perry
>It has improved my real life listening [...] Skills
Adler actually wrote another book about that, titled "How to Speak How to Listen" which may be worth checking out. I own a copy but have yet to crack it open. I would like to become a better speaker after I become a better reader.
Easton Watson
post-it notes where you want to leave a note
dont let them hang out the pages though
Alexander Gomez
Adler was also an economist.
If you have the chance, read 'The Capitalist Manifesto', after reading The Communist Manifesto and some Greek philosophy. The message is really well crafted and excellently thought out. Some of the themes aren't as developed as they could be and the sources are actually a bit lacking, but you are most likely 21 years old, you don't care about that right now anyway. :3
Adam Garcia
>but you are most likely 21 years old, you don't care about that right now anyway.
26 in just over two weeks, I'm afraid. I've wasted a lot of time being the Nietzschean last man. Now I'm trying to dedicate most of my time to things I consider productive: being an autodidact and erudite, and pursuing institutional education as well. Other than internet videos and common sense, I am not very familiar with economics, so I am not too concerned about depth. However, if another book serves as a more complete introduction, I'd rather read that.
Joshua Reyes
Thomas Sowell Basic Economics
Connor Morris
I keep a separate notepad where I write quotes from the book/author, also write about prevalent themes but haven't summarized it my own words do you find it helps will you're understanding expressing it in your own words? might just be a lazy fuck. I'll highlight a book if i have a copy or its already in shit condition because most books i get are used. I do a color system type of deal, but not like thread pic if you remember. It was some twitter thot using hegels work as a coloring book.
Carter Long
Just get a bendable ruler so your lines are straight when you underline shit.
Jeremiah Phillips
If you take shit notes that make you feel like you're "defacing" a book, it's probably because you're an inexperienced note-taker without a method or a system. Want to know how to get better? Practice.
Don't be afraid to "ruin" a few paperbacks. They're designed to be cheap and easy to replace, so use it to your benefit.
This is also a good idea. It'll probably make you feel more relieved to "ruin" your note copy if you always have a pristine copy available. Plus, you can always revisit the clean book to write much better annotations once you're a more mature thinker.
Anthony Robinson
So it's Adlercucks that deface all the library books I loan out. I always laugh when their notes never get past the first chapter.
Landon Baker
>If you take shit notes that make you feel like you're "defacing" a book
I don't. It has nothing to do with the quality of the notes. I don't want to mark an otherwise pristine book.
Jacob Fisher
do you mean to say you've wasted time reading NIetzsche or wasted time in acting like Nietzsche's last man?
Nathaniel Perez
>I don't want to mark an otherwise pristine book.
Why? It's your book to do as you please. Unless you're talking about some rare edition hardcover, it's made to be used.
Ryan Nelson
Then don't use a pristine book. I have a paperback copy of War and Peace that got water damage, nothing too serious but the pages are all wavy with a weird texture and the plastic coating on the cover is coming off. I'm waiting on a replacement but I'm going to use that one for any notes I feel like adding.
Brandon Perez
/pol/, no one cares about your economically illiterate Uncle Tom.
Alexander Bennett
The latter.
It is strange to see so many anons telling me to write inside the book when I've only heard others refer to it as "gore." I can't help but feel that a book is better when it isn't scribbled in. I buy books used, but without notations. I used the word pristine but I suppose it doesn't accurately convey their status. They are free from markings but not general wear.
Isaac Price
>Anonymous 08/25/19(Sun)07:08:14 No.13697
Most ancient scribes wrote notes in the sub paragraph, mostly to do with translation
I write key notes and ideas so I know where I was in a book
YOUR PICTURE user IS PURE VANDALISM and the person should have a tree grown through them so they understand the value of a book.
Robert White
i have multiple copies of books and use pens with felt tips and quality ink for no smudging or bleeding through. Always black ink though and i'd never be so obnoxious with my notes as to write entire sentences in a book, I've done it before and it's just too damned distracting. The system I use is designed to make rereads, flipping back, or even flipping through for a certain passage easier. I have a handful of coded marks and avoid underlining entire sentences. Things like repetition, specific objects, entire passages, patterns, phonetics; basically the notes i use point out what I thought was cool while reading.
Sometimes that's a lot of work though, it really slows down reading, so it depends on the book , how interested i am, etc.
Adam Baker
looks like something some bitch would do in order to upload to her instagram then she'd never pick up a book again
Tyler Jenkins
'gore' is such a naive viewing of it. Honestly, I'm upset that I didn't start writing in my books earlier.
Pic related is the pen I use. It's great for writing in books because the pen is solid on any quality of paper and will dry immediately and basically has no bleed through. One could argue they look ugly, but I think they look neat and they write like butter with ballpoint-like precision
Aiden Smith
(actual butter would bleed quite terribly if used as a writing utensil)
Colton Ward
If you feel like that it usually means you are unfamiliar with the subject that the book is addressing and don't really have a metric to compare what the author is saying against, in which case making notes often feels inauthentic and preformative.
Despite this, if you still feel the need to take notes, you can start by underlying passages that seem pivotal to the argument you think the author is making; you can also place question marks next to bits you either think like you don't grasp fully or you feel the author has provided an insufficient argument/justification that might require you to look elsewhere or answers.
With both practice, and increasing familiarity with the specific subject, you can build off this toward a more complex system of note taking.
Ayden Robinson
it's actually tomorrow
James Carter
Annotating your book like that is literally just a jerkoff. You will get nothing out of that.
Carson Brown
maybe small notes in the margins are acceptable, but your pic is obnoxious, pretentious, and ultimately useless. reading the notes reveals that they are a mess of disjointed ramblings that have little to do with the text or simply restate it without adequately summarizing. the highlighting is haphazard, and the different colors have no discernible pattern. the underlining is redundant. the page is ruined, in the hands of a competent reader it would have maybe 3 or 4 small notes, and would be far better understood. I guarantee asking this person to summarize these two pages would yield a lot of "ummmms" and nervous laughter.
pathetic.
Jason Ross
If I had ever been inclined to write in books, the experience of buying used books and suffering through various moronic undergrads' banal marginalia has cured me of it (and anyone who writes in a library book should just be shot: no questions asked). I couldn't believe how fucking stupid and unnecessary almost every written note was, and the girls with highlighters who end up marking 73% of the text are the worst. I make my notes separately now and never deface the book. You perverts do what you like.
Brayden Diaz
What was her twitter again?
Jackson Fisher
Anyone read Adler’s ”How to speak, how to listen”? I’m an introvert with weak social skills starting university soon and I was wondering if it’s worth picking up for someone like me.