Properly Owning a Book - A summary of how to read a book thoroughly using annotation and notes. PDF

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A summary of how to read a book thoroughly using annotation and notes....

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Bates 1 11 January 2018

Properly Owning a Book In the reading “How to Mark a Book” written by Mortimer J. Adler, published in The Saturday Review of Literature (1941), the author discusses the correct way to truly own a book. Adler defines a real book owner as someone who envelops his or her book in notes and ideas. These scribbles are not made with the intention of vandalizing the book, but are made in order to develop a deeper understanding of the book’s message and the tone the author is using. Adler first justifies active reading by discussing three key benefits for the reader. By actively reading, a reader can remain more awake. While reading text that may be more complex, some readers may find it difficult to remain involved with what is happening in the book. Therefore, by taking notes about the passage, readers can keep their mind active. Secondly, active reading helps stimulate the reader’s mind. By taking notes and writing down questions, the reader can begin to develop his or her own thoughts about the material. Adler’s last listed benefit was that active reading helps people remember what they had read previously. If the reader is lost in the book, they can simply go back over their notes in order to remember the books current plot. In the end of the article, Adler more clearly defines his active reading style. Adler lists his strategies to annotating through underlining, making notes in the margins, and using other small marks to help the reader better understand the meaning of the book’s message. Along with taking notes within the pages, and using a notepad to jot down ideas, Adler also suggests a method of taking notes on the front and back blank pages which he refers to as “fancy thinking.”

Bates 2 Through his ways of active reading, it is clear that Adler does not support a reader that simply reads a book without annotating it, but rather applauds readers that scribble, underline, annotate, and so on in order to better understand the author’s message. Adler emphasizes throughout the article that annotating a book is not a sign of disrespect for literature but it is a token of love and compassion for the written word....