I buy used books: it sucks to see someone else's notes scribbled all over the page. It's like a really annoying guy whispering at you with vapid explanations while you're trying to pay attention to a lecture.

"Cross out stuff you disagree with" actually makes me sick.

It also seems useless for understanding and retention, since highlighting is almost always misleading and margin notes are almost always empty. If you want to write notes, get a notebook, which gives you space to write real thoughts down. I use a trapper-keeper.

I _love_ buying a used book and finding a previous reader's notes in the margins. It's the greatest.

A tiny glimpse into a stranger's thinking as they processed the same pages I just did.

Thoughts they may never have shared anywhere else, that may not have made sense to anyone anywhere else. A secret code only for people who just read the last few pages. Shockingly intimate.

> Cross out stuff you disagree with, draw a big circles around the stuff that resonates. > Not only does it make consumption a lot more engaging, it makes a revisit of that book extremely rewarding

This is actually the biggest reason I own a Remarkable 2/Kindle Scribe, let's me "destroy" the book while also not having to worry about losing my notes.

I love nothing more than going through my mom’s cookbooks and seeing all her notes. It connects me with her even though she’s gone.

No. Carry a notebook. Long after you’ve given the book away, you’ll always have your notes.

Totally agreed. I've never understood why people are so opposed to marginal annotations - it's part of why the book format succeeded as a technology! (i.e you can't marginally annotate a clay tablet). Incidentally, I always loved how Tolkien's maps had these pointing hands to indicate significant bits, and only after reading a lot of old manuscripts and incunabula in grad school did I realize that he was copying the favorite annotation of medieval writers, the manicule: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manicule

I so don't have time to revisit books that I've already read. I'd probably be embarrassed by my earlier naiveté.

Michael Stevens (of Vsause fame) copies long quotes into notebooks, and he claims the act of writing it helps him remember. And if it's not worth writing, it's not a good enough quote.

"Write by hand and mark up your books" is excellent advice... that I no longer follow.

Marking up books didn't come naturally to me, but I did it for a while. Paper books are just decaying bundles of plant fiber — and the ideas within them are likewise ephemeral. The illusion of permanence must be confronted and reckoned with.

But for the last 15-20 years, I have been taking notes in text files that are saved to version control, which I find suits me better.

* Notes are not space-constrained by the space of the page margins, nor by the initial form they take on the paper page.

* Notes can be revised at will without requiring complete duplication to maintain optimal appearance and organization. There is no reason to resist revising notes — the history is completely preserved in old versions, so nothing will ever be destroyed even if deleted. Even though those old versions will almost certainly never be revisited, knowing that they exist frees the mind.

* I can indulge my perfectionism and write math notes in LaTeX, music notes in Lilypond, diagrams using SVG... The act of typesetting is itself a form of active engagement the source material, although it does not have all the advantages of hand-copying and can be time-consuming.

* Digital notes take up no physical space, compatible with a minimalist lifestyle. They can expand infinitely without needing to be stored or carted around.

* Digital notes don't need to be defended against physical threats such as fire, flood, or vermin. However digital notes still require precautions to preserve them in the form of a backup regime, so this is something of a wash.

* Ultimately, I don't expect anyone but me to be interested in my notes, and I don't owe anyone my notes. When I'm gone, the notes will vanish into nothingness — and since they are not constrained by being part of a legacy for heirs to pick through, they can take whatever form suits me best during my life.

I need to remember that this is okay. I didn't do it because of concerns about resale value... but recently I sold books for the first time in a while and got so little money that I realize this is not worth worrying about.

I was once telling a friend about a book I had just finished. They were curious about it and asked me to borrow it. I politely accepted knowing very well they could never read my copy for it was embarrassingly covered in the messy marks I had enjoyed making during my read. Fortunately neither of us ever brought the subject again and I now think twice before messing up my books!

Marginalia is the best! I have a handwritten note about Ayn Rand in my 27 year old copy of Enchridion, a great reminder that she is like chicken pox, better catch her as early as possible. And several books such as I Claudius held together with duct tape. And soy sauce stains in Gargantua and Pantagruel from the place my grad school gf worked. Those count.

A bit of irony, going through old stuff I found a copy of Neal Stephenson's In the Beginning... was the Command Line on top of handwritten running logs from sr yr of college. In that book, there was a ticket stub from the time I was 86ed from an amusement park. (I did not eat enough after training that morning.) I was escorted on a golf cart back to our car where I finished Neal's now charmingly quaint essay with the plastic handle listening to Nirvana.

This was August 2001 and Mac OS X had barely come out. Maybe AI rhymes where Chinese free open-models clean up but someone proprietary figures it out. Which is sad as someone dominant in the ecosystem right now is the equivalent of Gary Kildall.

I have a better way. Make a notebook and write stuff down there.

My grandad had a big library of books, but in his obsession of preservation, he wrapped all of their covers in gift wrap paper. It kind of defeated the purpose of having so many books in a library. You weren't able to browse them easily. I should go dive into them to take some some.

> A corollary to this is, when reading books, mark them up! Don’t be precious with them

I do all that, all the time these days... :-) I thoroughly enjoy it! Sometimes I feel like having discussions (disagreeing or agreeing) with the author and will write entire pro/cons examples and/or arguments.

Unless it's from the library. I've had to keep an eraser handy to undo some rando's bizarre markups.

If I'm really studying a book I'll have an office supply store cut the spine out and make the book spiral bound. It's pretty cheap to do it too, like $10 or something.

I use high-quality tape on the spine after flattening it for easy reading; still flattens well, but holds together longer.

I recently overcame this as I've been reading more of the unread books populating my shelves. I always wanted to keep my books in pristine condition and never wanted to mark them up. Now, I realize they are part of MY collection and marking them up with highlights, underlines, notes, etc., only make them more valued since they contain their intrinsic knowledge from the author as well as my own views. Even if I want to give them to friends to read, they'll see areas that jumped out to me and maybe appreciate some of the additional context or focus I noted as well.

I've found I don't like marking up books, because what was highly insightful and revelatory on the first read, seems obvious and boring on the second read

Advice from an inexperienced reader, please disregard (and don’t do this to library books!)

> A corollary to this is, when reading books, mark them up!

Not library books though.

Every so often I get one with stuff underlined with pen or highlighter, and it's one of things that really makes me angry. (Lightly in pencil I'm okay with.)

Better yet, take actual notes abd give yourself space to think: https://www.dsebastien.net/2022-02-17-how-to-capture-book-no...

I use a folded computer paper as a book mark and take notes on that with a page number for reference. It preserves the book and makes it easier to find what I want.

I started doing this in cookbooks, less of this, this needs longer time in the oven, etc.

The first time it felt like a crime.

Yes! 100x this. I do this all the time with my print technical books.

The way people take care of their property says a lot about them. Destroying and defacing one's own property is not someone I would trust. I'd prefer to work with people who treat their possessions with proper respect.

I buy paperbacks, chop and scan them [1] then use a reMarkable tablet + RCU [2] to do the reading.

Digitizing paper books and writing on them with digital ink is 100% the best way to have marginalia. I've tried special dotcode pens, portable scanners...writing digitally with a stylus is the best. Yes, it destroys the paper book, but it more than makes up for it with the freedom, flexibility, and durability of the digital copy.

[1]: https://www.davisr.me/projects/books/ [2]: https://www.davisr.me/projects/rcu/

Depends on the edition. I lent a book years ago to someone that was destroyed by damp on a window sill. I've never been able to get another copy of it.

A less rare book in a mass market edition would be another thing.

> Cross out stuff you disagree with, draw a big circles around the stuff that resonates.

I hate it when people do this. Please don't. If you must, do it sparingly and for the love of all that's good please do not cross out words or sentences.

The only thing I can forgive is people who quote a particular paragraph they liked about the book in one of the first pages where there's enough blank space. It's a personal touch that doesn't taint the rest of the book.

Some mark that this belonged to someone, maybe from decades ago, can be charming; but please, do not ruin the book for me by scribbling all over it.

[dead]

My issue with the iPad is that it just does not have the fine-fidelity or response time of real ink, and it's not something that never fails.

It's so frustrating to be so pregnant with an idea, to open ones iPad, and to find out the battery is low, Procreate isn't working, the Notes app is confusing to navigate, oh no you're writing but your palm has slid on the screen, etc.

I've spent a lot of time searching for a digital alternative, but IMO we're at least a decade away from digital handwriting being even close to on-par with paper, even ignoring friction and feel.

The study he cites is also specifically using digital pens

> Brain electrical activity was recorded in 36 university students as they were handwriting visually presented words using a digital pen and typewriting the words on a keyboard

kinda funny.

It's also not clear from this study that there is actually any benefit to "more brain activity". Of course doing more complex motor tasks requires more brain activity but nobody guarantees that this helps with remembering things.

Friction is also variable, with pen and paper type. Although the iPad is a bit too slick, it gets very fatiguing (I did most of my HW in college on the iPad)

I have a "paper-feel" screen protector and a metal nib on my Apple pencil. The combination provides a comfortable amount of friction for me, and the fact that it's matte cuts down on reflections.

iPad is terrible for hand-writing. It's (relatively) heavy, so you can't hold it and write on it. It's slippery, and the friction between the pen and stylus is bad.

The pen itself also produces gigantic strokes.

That's completely the wrong analogy. It's fairly well established through studies that language acquisition in preliterate kids is improved through handwriting (as opposed to typing or tracing letters).

> I know lots of people do say they learn better when handwriting, just like some people say they learn better while going for a walk. This does not translate into a universal theory of learning.

If lots of people said they code better while riding a unicycle, I'm not sure I'd just dismiss it off hand.

When I take notes when typing, I can transcribe the content word-for-word without knowing what I am hearing and without thinking about it.

When I hand write, I am generally forced to either slow down and repeat what I am listening/watching (if an option), or actually think about what is being said, and choose the important parts to write down, or rephrase it in a more efficient-to-write way.

I am taking a course right now and I find repeatedly that I understand the concepts from taking down the notes (many aha moments), and then I remember. I rarely if ever actually look at the notes I take - they are objectively inferior as a product compared to the official course notes or the textbook.

Maybe typing would be efficient for learning if I was bad it - could be an interesting hypothesis to test.

Riding a unicycle and coding are not complementary activities - you are multitasking. Writing is aligning different parts of your brain to the same task, perhaps it is just creating additional focus.

This is how it was explained to me by a tutor: handwriting is better for learning because it's slower. The need for brevity forces you to mentally engage the material in ways that are more conducive to understanding and recall.

If you can replicate that mental engagement while typing, you'd probably get similar results.

This makes a lot of sense to me in light of what we know about how learning happens. I have never seen any research on brain activity though, and my tutor didn't cite any.

The studies I'm familiar with have tested recall at various intervals, not brain activity.

It probably depends on the task. I find that writing things out by hand is extremely helpful for memorizing.

>your brain is doing more does not mean it's doing the right thing!

the thing it's doing when writing with your hand is fine motor control, one of the most important and distinguishing abilities that humans have.

I tutor in a makerspace and one thing I've observed it's that it's now easier to teach old people how to solder than younger kids, and that in my experience has never been the case before. Due to growing up on impoverished digital interfaces I see lack of dexterity that I've never seen in young people before. Same reason I suspect you see a decline in people picking up tactile musical instruments like the guitar or violin.

The problem is you immediately assume studies haven’t thought of that

Do you know that is how simplistic these studies actually are?

I noticed this as well and the question caused me to go pretty deep into writing in general.

Switched to a 36 key ergo split with a tweaked alpha-thumb layout (R is on my left thumb, Space is on the right, base layout is Hands Down Vibranium V). Started learning Pitman shorthand (again) then switched to Noory Simplex and stuck with it. Became fascinated with Zaner's Method of cursive where the writing is done entirely through arm movement and using the rhythm of the muscle movement instead of by conscious control over the pen position. At the moment I can write at about 100wpm on a keyboard, 70wpm in shorthand, and 26wpm longhand.

I believe that the improved ability to learn comes from the need to focus on a concept for longer while writing and not on the motion of the writing itself. My ability to retain is better in cursive than in shorthand and I don't notice a significant difference in retention between keyboard and shorthand.

I've thought about how hard it must be to be a lefty fountain pen user. What is one to do? Learn to write without resting your hand on the page?

If writing by hand is good for your brain (and I suspect it is), the slowness may be part of the reason for that.

Knowing that makes a lot of sense. Sometimes his prose can read like a sentence that was started but he’s too much effort in to give up on. It probably helps his writing to do it by hand - you can’t edit quickly on the fly with paper (unless you’re cutting stuff out). I could see this as being part of his process - just write and let the editing happen later.

Whatever the process it is, long as his books may be, it works.

I gave up on the Baroque Cycle, personally, because it felt like it was taking as long to read as it was taking to hand-write.

The point is to write better, not faster.

I wonder if Brandon Sanderson writes by hand :-D

David Foster Wallace was a longhand manuscript writer too.

Speed is the enemy.

I wonder if fiction writing at that level is like coding. You can learn to type and navigate really fast, but unless you're working on blub software, if you're doing something interesting and novel, you won't actually get to the goal faster. The bottleneck is the ideas, the structure of the story and the development of the characters, amongst many other concerns.

i read half of Troilus and Criseyde out loud to myself one summer in college and i may be a weirdo but it paid dividends. unbowdlerized Chaucer is the tits

Never knew about Ben Franklin. Thanks! After spending a week with him, no doubt he was the smartest and best-read person I'd ever been around.

As I understand it, that's more or less what Benjamin Franklin says he did to become a better writer.

https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2017/10/02/how-ben-franklin...

when studying mathematics and computer science i would handwrite algorithms, draw all psuedocode on paper first, and reconstruct steps from published papers, all extremely useful

i've actually had marketed to me on the socials a course on "transcribing" professional writers demonstrating various angles of the craft. I'm sure the course was vibed or something. Pretty easy to identify authors you like, and whose dialog snaps, whose descriptions you identify with, whose doing great character development, etc. And then transcribe them....

EDIT: maybe the term I was looking for is: copywork?

Benjamin Franklin said the same in his autobiography. I wonder if Gore Vidal had read it.

Very interesting. Hunter S. Thompson described the same technique for learning to write. I'll try it even if it only gets applied to technical blog posts...

That's really cool. I read Lincoln when I was around 18 and it has always stuck with me. The books you read become a part of you; they grow your view of the world. Books are the only way we have to capture the experience or mind of another person, and directly transfer not only their words but almost a sliver of the authors soul directly to others. Movies, sure.. But books hook into the imagination and mind.