I thought this was a good resource to share on a blog about libraries: “Twelve Ways To Mark Up A Book.”
There are many different ways to read books and just as many ways to remember their salient points. One of the most effective ways to get the most out of a book is to mark it up. There is no standard way to mark up a text, but below are a few ways that students have found effective in marking up a textbook so that one can see the important points quickly, make it more memorable, and make it easy to pick up years later and re-acquaint oneself with the major concepts.
The list of things not to do (on their post it has details):
- Don’t use a highlighter
- Don’t mark large volumes of text
- Don’t take the time to mark up items that you read on a daily basis
- Don’t mark the obvious
List of things to do:
- Mark the text with a pencil, pen, or, even better, colored fine-tipped pens
- Know your preferences
- Underline the topic sentence in a passage
- Use codes
- Write the passage topic in the margin as a reminder
- Write questions in the margin
- Circle new and unfamiliar words
- Add your or other author’s perspectives in the margins
- Add cross-reference notes to other works on the same topic
- Add structure to a narrative text
- Draw arrows to related ideas
- Summarize
Found via LifeHacker.
