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Daily Productive Sharing 1247- How To Mark A Book

One helpful tip per day:)

Mortimer J. Adler believed that you don't truly own a book until you've made it part of yourself—and the best way to do that is by writing in it:

  1. Some people have a few or many books—every one of them worn out, heavily used, covered in notes and markings from beginning to end. These are the people who truly own their books.
  2. Just like great conductors annotate their scores every time they return to study them, you should mark up books to make the experience active and personal.
  3. Marking a book helps keep you awake—not just conscious, but engaged. If reading is active, it produces thought, and thought often seeks expression—spoken or written.
  4. Writing down your thoughts helps you remember both your own insights and the author’s.
  5. If you want reading to do more than pass the time, it must be active.
  6. A truly great book—rich in ideas and beauty, tackling deep, fundamental questions—demands your highest level of engagement.
  7. You can’t reach such content if you’re passive or “asleep.”
  8. The physical act of writing something down helps etch it into your memory and makes it easier to recall.
  9. Responding to meaningful passages and writing down questions deepens your understanding.
  10. Margins, blank pages, even the spaces between lines—all are fair game. Your marks become part of the book. When you revisit it, your earlier thoughts are there, waiting—like a conversation paused, ready to resume.
  11. That’s the ideal of reading: an ongoing dialogue with the author.
  12. Real understanding is a two-way process—learning isn’t just passive absorption.
  13. Some say annotating slows reading—true, and that’s exactly why it’s worthwhile.
  14. A wise reader adjusts their reading style to match the book’s value.
  15. With great books, what matters isn’t how many you’ve read—but how many have read into you, how many you’ve made part of yourself.

Adler’s specific note-taking system included:

  1. Underline or highlight: key points and strong arguments.
  2. Vertical lines in the margin: to further emphasize underlined text.
  3. Stars or symbols: use sparingly for the 10–20 most crucial ideas in the entire book.
  4. Numbers in the margin: to track the sequence of points in an argument.
  5. Page references: to cross-link related ideas across the book.
  6. Circling or highlighting key terms/phrases.
  7. Margin notes or top/bottom notes: record your questions, summary statements, or outline key arguments.
  8. Blank pages at the back: used as a personal index, summarizing key ideas in order of appearance.
  9. At the end: go back to the beginning and write your own outline—not point by point, but capturing the book’s overarching structure and logic.
  10. This outline is Adler’s benchmark for true understanding: if you can do this, the book is no longer just read—it’s yours.

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Mortimer J. Adler 认为只有把一本书变成自己的一部分时，我们才真正拥有它，而让它成为一部分的最佳方式，就是在书上写下我们的思考：

  1. 有些人可能有几本或许多书——每一本都被反复翻阅、已经破旧不堪、松松垮垮，书里从头到尾都留下了批注和标记。（这种人才真正“拥有”书。）
  2. 伟大的指挥家会不断在乐谱上做标记，每次回头学习时都要再做一遍，这也是你应当在书上做标记的原因。
  3. 首先，这能让你保持清醒（这里说的不是“清醒”而是专注的状态）。其次，如果阅读是主动的，那就会产生思考，而思考往往会通过口头或书面表达出来。最后，写下你的想法有助于你记住自己当时的思考，或作者表达的思想。
  4. 如果阅读想达到超越打发时间的效果，就必须是主动的。
  5. 一本真正伟大的书，充满思想与美，提出并尝试回答重要根本性问题，需要你以最高度的主动性来阅读。
  6. 你需要主动去探寻这些内容，而你在“沉睡”时是无法做到的。
  7. 用自己的手把文字写下来，这一动作能让你更清楚地把句子印在脑海中，也更容易记住。
  8. 写下你对重要词句的反应、这些句子引发的问题，就是在保留这些思考并让问题更加深刻。
  9. 页边（上下左右）、扉页、甚至行间的空间都可以利用。它们不是神圣不可侵犯的。最妙的是，你的标记和批注会成为书的一部分，永久留在那里。你可以在下周或下一年重新翻开这本书，所有的认同、质疑、疑惑和思考还在那里，就像是在继续一场被打断的对话，可以直接从上次停下的地方继续。
  10. 这正是阅读一本书的理想状态：与作者进行一场对话。
  11. 理解是一场双向操作；学习并不只是被动地接收。
  12. 有人会说在书上做标记会拖慢阅读进度，这很可能是真的，这也是为什么值得这么做。
  13. 聪明的阅读者，能够根据内容的价值采取不同的阅读方式。
  14. 对于好书来说，关键不在于你能读多少本，而在于有多少本书真正“读进”了你——有多少本你真正把它变成了自己的一部分。

具体而言，他是这么做笔记的：

  1. 画线（或高亮）：标出关键点或重要、有力的论述。
  2. 页边的竖线：进一步强调已经划线的内容。
  3. 页边加星号、星花等小符号：要慎用，用于强调全书中最重要的十到二十条内容。
  4. 页边数字：用于标注作者构建某一论点时提出的分点顺序。
  5. 页边标注其他页码：指出书中其他地方有相关论点，把分散的内容关联起来。
  6. 圈出或高亮关键词或词组。
  7. 在页边或页首、页尾写下你的问题（及可能的答案）、把复杂讨论简化成一句话、或记录全书主要脉络。
  8. 他会用书的末尾空白页做一本人的索引，按出现顺序总结作者的重要观点。
  9. 读完并完成个人索引后，他会翻到首页，尝试整体勾画出全书的大纲——不是逐页或逐点，而是整体结构，梳理书的统一性与各部分顺序。
  10. 这个大纲，对他来说，是衡量是否真正理解这本书的标准。

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Dr Selfie

Dr Selfie