"How to Mark a Book" by Mortimer Adler

DATE: Friday November 14, 2008
TIME: 1:40 p.m.
PLACE: Home Computer

In "How to Mark a Book", Mortimer Adler persuades us to do writing and also take notes by marking a book. Like he says "marking is not an act of mutilation, but of love" and also "marking a book is literally an expression of your differences or agreements of opinion with the author".

The writer, after persuading the reader that it's okay to mark a book, he showed us how to mark it efficiently in the following 7 steps:

1. Underlining.

2. Vertical lines at the margin.

3. Star, asterisk, or other doo-dad at the margin.

4. Numbers in the margin.

5. Number of other pages in the margin.

6. Circling of key words or phrases.

7. Writing in the margin. or at the top or bottom of the page.

Now, I know that some of us may be skeptical about writing in our books, but I think Adler makes a good point about why should we mark our books and that is, agreeing or disagreeing with the author of whatever book we're reading. Besides of the fact that he showed us 7 basic points of how to do it.