HOW TO MARK A BOOK First off, Mortimer Adler in “How to mark a book” states that by writing between lines of a book, preferably books that contain ideas, one is most likely to practice the art of effective reading. Marking a book is an act of love and shows, what Mortimer likes to call, “full ownership” of the book. Purchasing a book with money is only a prelude to book ownership. That person only owns pulp wood and ink if he does not read them, according to Mortimer but where one is able to absorb and understand the book content, fully owns that book.

Mortimer Adler has categorized book ownership into three. Two cases which have been talked about above. The cases where one owns books but does not read them and the other where one exhausts the book content into his brain by marking the book. The other case is where one may have many books but has read few and most of them in are good condition. This person probably wants to make full use of the book but is said to have false respect for the book. Marking a book brings about thoughtful reading and probably leads to disfiguring and loosening of the books due to continual usage.

Some argue to say that some books are just meant to be taken care of as they are of soul value to the reader. Mortimer states that in some cases it may be true but still tries to enlighten us that a book is not like a statue which has certain values that necessitate people to keep it in good condition. Marking a book is an act of love and not of mutilation. Among other things, marking a book involves underlining sentences, drawing vertical lines on the underlined sentences to emphasize importance of the statement, writing numbers on the margin to show sequence of the points.

The numbers can also be used to indicate pages where points relevant to the marked point are. Other marking methods are circling, writing in the margin which includes things like answers to questions raised in the passage, questions raised in your mind from the passage. Marking a book is essential because one understands better the content of a book. Also that physical activity of marking keeps the reader awake plus words and sentences store better in the mind. All in all people should practice the art of marking a book for successful studies.