do you think highlighting/annotating helps comprehension?

[hypatia_]

As I've gotten older, I've started to highlight and annotate my reading a lot more. But I've noticed that it's also a lot harder to comprehend that way, since I have to keep breaking my concentration to pick up the pen. I've found I understand a book a lot better when I don't highlight or write in the margins, but then I have nothing to look back at.

What about you?

[bookowskee]

I got used to highlighting books the first time I picked up Camus in my teens (lyrical and critical essays). I've been doing that since then. Whether the book/s I read is riddled with highlights or not has little to do with whether I comprehend them or not. I usually end the paragraph before going back to the line/s to highlight them. For me it's always a treat to comeback to a book and see the marks/notes I made and gauge how my state of mind was then or how much I understood what the author was saying then. And so on.

If I don't understand the book, I usually leave it for a period of time (weeks, months and so on) and come back to it hopefully with a better approach.

[Gladys]

Reading on a Nook Simple Touch eReader, I highlight any passage that seems difficult or surprising. If the ending of the book is obscure (as Dostoevsky's The Possessed, which I finished yesterday, is) I find rereading my highlights useful.

[Lokasenna]

I used to scribble in all my books, but I have fallen out of the habit in recent years. I tend to keep a notebook to hand when I'm reading, so that I can make a note of any interesting or enjoyable quotations that appeal. I don't find it breaks my concentration, but rather focuses it.

[Phocion]

I usually just tag as i go. Anything i feel i might want to refer to, or take another look at, i tag and then note it down when i've finished the book. I find that works pretty well, and if you already have the tags in the book, it doesn't break the flow of reading at all.

[Charles Darnay]

If I'm using the book for essay purposes - I will stick post-it notes in pages to help me locate them when I need them. Some people find highlighting or note taking useful - personally I do not. I am very much against writing in books in any way (hence the post-it notes): it's a very strange quirk I developed. I actually cringe if I see someone writing in one of my books.

[Mathor]

I am one of those that would rather use post-it notes. They are easy to see when you flip through, and you do not have to ruin the book. I think keeping a notebook to jot down ideas is a lot better. However, I am very hypocritical, as I enjoy finding old books in used bookstores that are filled with mark-up. It allows me to get inside of the head of someone else.

[Charles Darnay]

I am one of those that would rather use post-it notes. They are easy to see when you flip through, and you do not have to ruin the book. I think keeping a notebook to jot down ideas is a lot better. However, I am very hypocritical, as I enjoy finding old books in used bookstores that are filled with mark-up. It allows me to get inside of the head of someone else.

Indeed, this can be very fun. Some people have violent reactions to what they read, and express it through markings. I was reading a book on Hamlet a while back, and this particular mid-20th century scholar suggested that Ophelia was nothing more than a common whore. He used very flimsy evidence to support his point. The previous reader of this book drew a large X down the page and in the margin wrote "NO!" I really like picturing someone having a heated argument with the book.

[hypatia_]

Indeed, this can be very fun. Some people have violent reactions to what they read, and express it through markings. I was reading a book on Hamlet a while back, and this particular mid-20th century scholar suggested that Ophelia was nothing more than a common whore. He used very flimsy evidence to support his point. The previous reader of this book drew a large X down the page and in the margin wrote "NO!" I really like picturing someone having a heated argument with the book.

Haha that is awesome!

[Lokasenna]

Indeed, this can be very fun. Some people have violent reactions to what they read, and express it through markings. I was reading a book on Hamlet a while back, and this particular mid-20th century scholar suggested that Ophelia was nothing more than a common whore. He used very flimsy evidence to support his point. The previous reader of this book drew a large X down the page and in the margin wrote "NO!" I really like picturing someone having a heated argument with the book.

One of the joys of leafing through books in an academic library is finding deeply involved and ongoing arguments jotted in the margins - sometimes comprising multiple voices, and sometimes getting rather too heated.

[OrphanPip]

I almost never write in books. I write on photocopies/print-outs of essays sometimes. Instead, I keep notebooks where I usually include summaries, initial reactions, and important quotes from sections.

[JuniperWoolf]

I buy a lot of used books and use the library, so I wish people wouldn't highlight or underline if they intend to sell or if the book doesn't belong to them (seriously, who are these jerks?). I too kind of like reading words that previous readers have written, in one of my bio textbook someone has written "I <3 FUNGI" in the margin.


I tend to keep a notebook to hand when I'm reading, so that I can make a note of any interesting or enjoyable quotations that appeal.

I do the same, the books that I actually own are mark-free.

[hypatia_]

I almost never write in books. I write on photocopies/print-outs of essays sometimes. Instead, I keep notebooks where I usually include summaries, initial reactions, and important quotes from sections.

That sounds like a cool idea. It's like a reading diary. Plus if someone ever makes a thread about a book you've read before, you can consult it and see exactly what you thought rather than relying on fuzzy memory :)

[OrphanPip]

That sounds like a cool idea. It's like a reading diary. Plus if someone ever makes a thread about a book you've read before, you can consult it and see exactly what you thought rather than relying on fuzzy memory :)

I usually only keep notes if I'm reading it for a class or if I intend to write on it. I'm not diligent enough to keep a record of thoughts for every text I read.

@Junniper, I'm currently reading a copy of Eugene Onegin out of the library and someone has extensively annotated every single stanza in the book in garish pink. Not sure if I admire or hate the person for going through the effort.

[hawthorns]

I used to scribble in all my books, but I have fallen out of the habit in recent years. I tend to keep a notebook to hand when I'm reading, so that I can make a note of any interesting or enjoyable quotations that appeal. I don't find it breaks my concentration, but rather focuses it.


Same here. Used to highlight, underline, margin write to no end when first started college. By my senior year I was using brackets and the occasional note and comprehending/remember twice as much. Go figure.

[Mathor]

I almost never write in books. I write on photocopies/print-outs of essays sometimes. Instead, I keep notebooks where I usually include summaries, initial reactions, and important quotes from sections.

All of my literature classes at university consisted of binders full of books that I copied/printed. I would highlight/scribble through all of it but I like to leave the original books untouched.

[kiki1982]

O don't do it a lot. Doing it destroys your concentration. Instead I try to remember. As I read classics a lot, there are e-texts available for when I can't remember where something is that was important and I can just look for a word I remember was there.

[kev67]

I don't know whether it aids comprehension, but it irritates me when I buy a second hand book from Amazon or a charity shop to find someone had underlined sections of it. I found this when I bought a copy of New Grub Street from an Oxfam Shop. It annoyed me so much that I bought an eraser and rubbed out all the underlining.

[WyattGwyon]

I write notes in the front and back of labyrinthine novels like those of Gaddis, Pynchon, and David Foster Wallace, and occasionally underline—in pencil—if I wish to refer to the aforementioned notes. In some of these novels there are networks of connections almost impossible to grasp on a single reading.

[PeterL]

I think that marking up books gets in the way of reading and messes up books.

[Ecurb]

Vladimir Nabokov did it (acc. some photocopies of his margin notes in "Lectures on Literature").

[hypatia_]

I think that marking up books gets in the way of reading and messes up books.

i'm finding this to be the case.

[The Comedian]

I'm totally irreverent about my books: I jot in the margins, underline, draw stars, !s; I dog-ear pages, dribble coffee on them.

The way I see it, I like a book that talks to me. And I like to talk back to it. :)

[Indomitable]

It depends on what I'm reading. Annotations assist me in understanding poems and short stories, but I find it tedious for novels. I've recently been forced to annotate a simplistic, horrendous novel in a general way for an assignment, and it's quite redundant. If I do annotate a novel, it's always on my second reading of the novel, for the reader rarely has enough information during a first read to write coherent annotations. My annotations usually pertain to specific elements of the text rather than the plot itself or general character development.

[hypatia_]

It depends on what I'm reading. Annotations assist me in understanding poems and short stories, but I find it tedious for novels. I've recently been forced to annotate a simplistic, horrendous novel in a general way for an assignment, and it's quite redundant. If I do annotate a novel, it's always on my second reading of the novel, for the reader rarely has enough information during a first read to write coherent annotations. My annotations usually pertain to specific elements of the text rather than the plot itself or general character development.


yup same here. I've begun to shy away from annotating in general.

[qimissung]

I don't like writing in my books. I also don't care to read books that have a lot of writing in them. I once bought a used copy of "West With the Night," only to discover that it had been written in extensively. I got rid of it and got a new used and clean copy.

That said, I can see that it would be useful, especially for literature students, or academics. It's a little embarrassing to admit, since I've taught AP and attempted to teach my students to annotate themselves. Anyway, I'm generally reading for pleasure. If I was reading something challenging, I like the idea of those tiny little post it notes.

I think it would interrupt my train of thought. Maybe, OP, you can read a chapter once for comprehension, then go back with your pen.

[astrum]

For me, it's helpful.

[loe]

I'm totally irreverent about my books: I jot in the margins, underline, draw stars, !s; I dog-ear pages, dribble coffee on them.
BURN in hell, blasphemous you! :devil:

Just kidding. ;)

I also prefer using a notebook or post-its. Only when I hadto learn and could consider the books being school/study books than I could overcome myself to mark things directly, because for learning this was really helpful.

[Mairwen]

I highlight and scribble in the margins a lot because I have epiphanies as I read that are difficult to remember if I do not jot them down. I really just always have the pen ready, in my hand. Since I am a college student, taking the quick notes in literature textbooks (for example) is helpful because the ideas I get while reading literature are ideal to bring up in class as discussion points. Maybe it's just a shortcut since I have bad memory, but I only ever do this with textbooks. Never have I found it necessary to write in novels.

[kiki1982]

I might start to find it necessary writing in novels. You say that about bad memory... When I used to read a book, I could remember the smallest of details that would be referenced later in the novel (say, a note that someone gave to someone else, but not really made a great deal of; or a certain handkerchief or something). Now, at 31 (:bawling:) I can't remember and I catch myself trying to figure out what that situation was again. I'll have to start marking pages and sentences...

[JBI]

I usually find myself fighting with other annotations. Generally I gloss characters I cannot read or that are read as alternative readings, (such is the way with ancient languages) the actual range of annotations available is a research field in itself. It's also enjoyable to see the range other annotations have come up with.

For late ancient Chinese scholars, or even the older scholars today, there seems to have been a tradition of trying to leave a masterwork of annotation as a testament to ones career achievements. In that light, I have found annotations perhaps the most undervalued thing we have when it comes to scholarship in English. We generally publish with few annotations in English, compared with the great continental traditions (exemplified by the great German scholars of the 19th century).

In general notes are devided into two groups, notes on the meaning of words, and then exegesis.

I tend to only write notes on meanIng and not notes on interpretation. The interpretation I just memorize for a later day.

[Eiseabhal]

Some notes in Celtic manuscripts are the explanations which scholar monks brought to the works, some are short creative pieces in their own right - perhaps inspired by the reading- and some are mere interpolations to the mundane - cuimhne an cat a cuir a mach (remember to put the cat out!)

[ennison]

Ha ha! Gle eibhinn a dhuine! It's from a manuscript like those that the poem "Pangur Ban" originated mus math m chuimhne!