do you think highlighting/annotating helps comprehension?

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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Originally Posted by PeterL

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

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i'm finding this to be the case.

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. :)

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.

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Originally Posted by 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.

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

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.

For me, it's helpful.

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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.

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.

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...