Marking up books has never been anything I have done. After reading this, my opinion is not changed. Taking notes in your book only takes up more of your time. Even though the author tries to persuade me that taking notes in the margin is a good idea and that it is good to slow me down reading, I totally disagree with him. I have a lot of homework to do and little time to do it in. I do not to be slowed down even more than I already am.
Also, he says that you should not worry about selling them back because they should be written in. I disagree strongly. This person must have had a very different college experience than I am. Books are so expensive now. I cannot afford to keep all of my college books or have the return rate drop because I wrote in them.
All in all, I disagree with Mortimer Adler. I have been taking notes on regular paper my whole life and it has never failed me yet. Now it’s even easier because I can keep my notes nice and organized on the computer. Thanks Adler but I think I can handle note taking my way.
2 comments:
I feel the same way you do. I do not believe that writting in a book "makes it yours" or means you will get more out of the book. To me all it means is there is a bunch of unneccesary crap all on the sides of the pages. I have never been one to take notes while reading unless instucted to and it has never worked against me. Although I can understand that taking notes might be helpful for some people it is just something that I have not needed to do.
I understand and must say you have a great fighting argument. You mention a lot of key reasons that many people would not want to mark up a book. I on the other hand love to write in my school books so I can understand the text better and reference it later on down the road. You make a great point in saying how it lowers the resale value and unfortunately, it is the truth. I believe everyone should just stick to the method that they are accustomed to using because switching ways could mess up one's note taking altogether.
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