People say that you have to write notes in the margins and use a colored highlighter on the text to enhance the important parts...Maybe I am some kind of purist but I would hate to do that in the book.So, do you just read the book and take no notes? Do you think it really adds to take notes or just reading it with your bare eyes to be sufficient ?Or do you take notes on a different paper/notebook and make small summarizes and notes of each chapters of the book?What are you reading habits, help me please.
You just read. If you can't remember things, slow down and pay attention. When I meet new characters in a book, I say (in my head) Hello So-and-so about three times. This helps me to remember them as I'm quite bad with names. I'll remember visual hints the author has given and conjure this image whenever that character speaks or acts. I'll underline with pencil the quotes or passages I liked, because they were profound or just pretty. If a plot is not clear, you weren't paying attention. Remove distractions and try again.For non fiction, I'll grab a notebook and review, post-chapter, the most important things. This keeps events fresh in my mind—just the act of writing things down helps items stay in the grooves of memory longer. I can later refer back to these notes. Word definitions are written down, along with context, to be looked up in the dictionary later.I implore you, come to you in supplication, to not use a bloody highlighter in your lovely books.
The whole "take notes in the margins" thing is just a tool by teachers to force students to actually engage with what they read, to think about it instead of just scanning words with their eyes without retaining information. So to that end, you simply need a strategy that helps you engage and remember. It doesn't matter what it is, as long as helps you, personally. For some people, audio books are better because they retain information better by listening than by reading. If you're a visual person, but for whatever reason have difficulty digesting paragraphs of text, you might need a supplementary system like taking notes to help you remember, but not necessarily marginalia or journals. Personally, I draw idea / relationship maps if I need to grasp something I'm reading.Usually though I don't need notes. I've always had very high information retention from reading and notes are just a distraction from absorbing the text. It's only when the book is particularly convoluted that I need to map things out, and even then the map isn't a reference, it's a way to get my thoughts ordered while I draw it, and once drawn I rarely ever consult it.
Anyone who makes marks in a book needs to be dragged into the street and shot through the back of the head. Use a notebook if you have to but making notes is unnecessary. Just read the words.
>>23558261>People say that you have to write notes in the margins and use a colored highlighter on the text to enhance the important parts...no, you don't. >So, do you just read the book and take no notes? Do you think it really adds to take notes or just reading it with your bare eyes to be sufficient ?I don't take notes from what I read, but if you're reading books with complicated things (for example, a book that jumps around it's own timeline) it could be helpful. Also, if a book is really long, it might be worth it to make note of characters and ideas that were introduced at the beginning, as they might show up at the end and you may not remember them otherwise.Only take notes if you feel like you need to. Too many people were taught that you have to take notes no matter what, and all of those people are just wasting their time and, ironically, becoming less engaged with the task of reading and more engaged with the note taking.
>>23558261If the book has a lot of hidden subtext, I read the cliff notes online or something to help catch that stuff. I just finished Catcher in the Rye, and while I did not discover plot points organically within the narrative as is traditional, I am able to engage with much more of the meaning and thought behind certain words or events. When I read the Illidan and the Odyssey, I used the Cliff notes to help me understand a lot of the references to things like the gods and goddesses, or the meaning behind certain cultural expressions. It absolutely enhanced the story for me to be aware of those things before hand. But sometimes that is not always possible. I read a book on trash one time. I had to rely on the author having enough writing skill to talk about trash without losing me, and he did, and it was very enjoyable. I felt lonely and scared, like a German peasant walking through Black Forest Ham kind of forest. I have a special Bible with thick pages that I highlight and write on. I also have wire bound notebooks that I use to take notes as time goes on. Really it all depends on the book and what you intend to extract from it. The ancient literature books and the Bible, I want to expand my thoughts and capacity for thought, so I gather secondary sources and I enjoy the different translations. But sometimes, reading a book is just reading a book.
>>23558298>if a plot is not clear, you weren't paying attention. Remove distractions and try again.I could not disagree more. Good writing is not a prerequisite to being published.
>>23558261If you're reading a "normal" book, just read it and you'll be fine even if you don't understand 100% of the references and subtext. If you're reading something like Finnegans Wake you definitely need some sort of companion reader.
>>23558261Ernest Dimnet in "The Art of Thinking" devoted big portion of the book to reading. You should look into it. The tldr:> The way you read out of pure necessity, is the way you should read in general. Skiping lines/pages/chapters, approaching text with non-uniform focus is proper and natural way to read. Reading a map by scanning it all left to right going downwards, would be ineficient and boring. You'd rather focus on a small portion of it, and place less care in the rest. Above all, the way you read out of a need, not caring for the act of reading itself, is ideal.> Of course you should only read what gives you great pleasure. Which will take care of the previous problem. You shouldn't give in to the inferiority complexes, and try reading "important works" if or while they don't give you great pleasure.
