How To Markup A Book

When we read to learn, a single read through is usually not enough to fully retain the needed information. It's enough to get the essence of the text, but a learner's duty is to absorb the knowledge more deeply. Unfortunately, the brain misses a lot of information. Reading a full book a second or third time is unproductive. It would be better to revisit key points and insights from the text. The learner must leave breadcrumbs.

I call this the "Breadcrumbs Method". This method also includes rules for keeping the book in good condition so that when the book is passed on to a new owner, they may restore it with minimal effort. Please read A Word of Caution first.

Tutorial

Materials Needed

• No. 2 pencil (I personally prefer a mechanical pencil)
• Eraser (or pencil with eraser)
• Sticky notes (2 x 1.5 inch)
• Smaller sticky tabs or "flags" (I just cut sticky notes in half with a razor blade)

Marking Text

Most people will underline, highlight, or circle text on a page. This is fine for text books because they become obsolete in a few years, but for normal books it's a bit destructive. Even if you use pencil, erasing it usually means doing a bit of damage to the print.

Is it really necessary to only mark the exact sentence or phrase? Do you really need to mark inside the line? I find that it is sufficient to just mark the lines that interest me in the margin. When I re-read, I don't find it ambiguous at all; I've never had trouble figuring out exactly the sentence or phrase that I was interested in.

Here is my marking method:

1. Make very light marks using a no. 2 pencil.
2. ONLY mark in the outer margins, not within the text, and not the inner margins (ie. near the spine).
3. Mark with a bracket to group multiple lines together.
4. For very long text, mark the beginning and end of the text with "disconnected" bracket ends. These can span multiple pages.
5. Make notes in the top, bottom, or side margins only (lightly written in pencil).

This method ensures that marks are easy to see and easy to erase. It is also much less effort than underlining or highlighting. Using pencil is much nicer in my opinion. Highlighters tend to bleed through the paper and most pens require more pressure and leave an indentation.

Sequential Page Marking

For efficient re-reading, it shouldn't be necessary to turn to every page to check for markings. Here is what I do:

1. On the first page that I mark, I put a small sticky note or tab in the top of the page.
2. If I mark the following page, I leave a triangle mark in the bottom right corner of the preceding page. Later, when I see the triangle, I know I've marked the next page. By "next page" I mean the next turn of the page (the following 2-page view), so I still mark it even if I didn't mark the next page exactly.
3. I continue denoting subsequent marked pages with triangles in the bottom right.
4. When there is a break in the sequence, I stop marking with a triangle. When I come upon another page that I want to mark, I start the sequence over again and denote it with a sticky note.

When I am re-reading I can start at a sticky note, follow the sequence of triangles, and when the triangles end I just skip to the next sticky note.

This ensures that I only turn to the pages that are marked. It also reduces the number of sticky notes you need because you only place one at the beginning of a sequence of pages. As I'm reading, I'm constantly considering how I should mark up the book to streamline the process of re-reading. I usually mark a lot of text, but I always shoot for this goal: I should be able to re-read the book in a couple hours and be completely refreshed on the subject.

Bookmark Leapfrog

When I start a new book, I grab three sticky notes to start off with: two to mark my progress, and one to mark the end of the book.

Why do I use two bookmarks? I use two sticky notes as bookmarks so that I can alternate between them. Each day, I leave one where I left off yesterday. The other is advanced as I read throughout the day. This lets me see how much progress I make daily. I'm very judgmental of myself, and if I feel like I didn't read enough I will tend to push myself to read more.

So why do I mark the end of the book? Well, most books don't end at the back cover. There might be an index, glossary, bibliography, acknowledgements, and more. I'm not going to read that stuff and it makes the book look deceptively long. I like to know roughly how much of the book I have left. It's not because I'm impatient, it just motivates me sometimes. I've often finished reading for the day, then noticed that there wasn't much of the book left. Sometimes, it compels me to finish it off just because I feel like I'm almost there. It's all about psychologically conquering myself.

A Word of Caution

The use of sticky notes can be a bad idea in the long run. The adhesive becomes acidic over time and causes paper to degrade, becoming discolored and brittle. It can be especially damaging to antique books. Do not use sticky notes on books that you do not own. You may even be charged a fee if you return a book to the library with sticky note residue.

If you're interested in preserving a book, you shouldn't use sticky notes or adhesive tabs of any kind. You should use loose paper as a bookmark. Tissue paper is best because it's thin and doesn't spread the pages apart as much. You should use colorless, acid-free paper. Also, if you want to keep the book in perfect condition don't mark it at all, even with pencil. Take notes in a notebook instead.