“How to Mark a Book” by Mortimer Adler is an essay about how one should mark a book in order to actively engage in the act of reading. The essay describes the benefits of writing in books and how writing in books benefits the reader. Many interesting points are argued in this essay about why one should mark a book; however, some of the points mentioned are not entirely true. Even though marking in a book has proven to help a reader actively engage, that is not always the case. Adler’s essay is directed towards a specific reader, the scholarly reader, and ignores the multitude of reading styles and needs, which is biased.
Adler used many metaphors in his essay to describe various points, such as owning a book. According to Adler, until
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Also, Adler pointed out that it is better to spend time with a book for thousands of hours, rather than magazines for thousands of hours. Adler ended the essay by saying that one should never lend books to their friends because they will be confused and also because one should never share their thoughts on a book with someone else.
Adler ignores the reader who may be too poor to afford to buy books and needs to use a public library. The people who go to the public library are not allowed to write in the books that they check out. Adler, does address that if one cannot write in a book, then one should either write on a paper or post-its. Adler does not go into details much about what people should do if they cannot write into book too much, and only states: “You shouldn’t mark up a book which isn’t yours.” Adler states that if one does now own the book, then they should not mark in the book. Books that are given by outside sources should not be marked on because the outside sources most likely expect one to return the book to them in the same condition that it was given to the reader in. Adler compares writing in a book given from an outside source to Paradise Lost. He writes, “I’d no more scribble over a first edition of Paradise Lost than I’d give my baby a set of crayons and an original Rembrandt!” (Wake Tech 32). Adler compares writing in a book that does not belong to the reader with an original copy of Paradise Lost
Bartholomae, David, and Tony Petrosky. Ways of Reading: An Anthology for Writers. 9th ed. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martins, 2011. Print.
In the essay “How to Mark a Book” by Mortimer J. Adler, the author explains that “marking up a book is not an act of mutilation, but of love” (1). Adler points out that marking books keeps a reader vigilant to what they are actually reading (2). The author continues on to say owning a book is more than having it sit on a shelf; owning a book means for the reader to make it unique for him or herself, doing so will make reading that much more enjoyable for the reader. Adler also claims that writing small notes or comments as you read helps readers to summarize what they’ve just read, even days later. He says that writing in books allows the brain to store that information deeper into the long term memory making it easier to come back to (2).
Today, no one seems to give much value of literary works or reading. Not because it doesn’t give anything beneficiary, but because not everyone had the urged to at least finish a book. We now live in a world where social medias almost dominates our daily activities. It’s unlikely to have a place for us to consume a non-fiction or fiction book. As absurd as it sounds but that’s how people often think. We now live in an egalitarian society, where everyone is given the freedom and right of its own.
In the poem “Marginalia”, by Billy Collins takes a look at the marginal notes written in books. The marginal notes are seen as a communication between the reader and the words in the book. The note sometimes can be negative because they are a way of releasing frustration with the work, especially if not well received, but sometimes they are a way of celebrating on the work. [The narrator asserts students to join the conversation with author's words by writing marginal notes; however, one may say it proves to be a distraction, It causes readers to pre-judge a book and lastly, it prevents one from understanding the text.]
In his writing of “How to Mark a Book,” Mortimer J. Adler recommends that while reading a book, you should make a personal index on the papers in the book, but not page by page or point by point. Instead, he suggests making it an integrated structure with a basic unity and an order of parts. The marked book is usually the thought-through book.
In “How to Mark a Book”, Mortimer J. Adler delves into the importance of active reading. His purpose is to encourage an audience of readers to not be afraid to write in a book because “…the soul of a book can be separated from its body” (Adler 17). Meaning, a book is more than its physical being and deserves to be cherished for what is written inside of it.
Mortimer J. Adler essay “How to Mark up a Book” persuades readers to start marking up books when we are reading. Adler brings up good points on why marking up makes us readers smarter and helps us understand what the author is saying. He then begins to talk about three different book owners. He says that the first two do not really own the book because they have not physically marked up the book and keep it clean to keep the book's appearance new. He says that the one who has completely marked up the few books he/she has owns books because the condition of the book shows that they have used it and continue to. The writer who marked up the books and has written all over now owns the books because they have their thoughts and feelings about the
How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines by Thomas C. Foster is a book that explains there is more to literature than just a few words on a paper or a few pages in a book. Thomas Foster’s book portrays a relatable message to a wide based audience. This book is relatable for two reasons, the way it is written and the examples it uses. The book is written in a conversational manner, as if the reader was in a group discussion about books and writing. As for the examples, they are informative, descriptive, relative, and entertaining.
To be an active reader is to be able to express yourself in the book one reads. Mortimer J. Adler argues in his article, “How to Mark a Book”, that to be an active reader, the reader needs to actually write in their book; but also to fully claim ownership of their book. According to Adler, there are plenty of ways one can mark in a book; underlining, vertical lines at the margin, asterisk, numbers in the margin, circling or highlighting, writing in the margin at the bottom or top, etc. One does not initially understand what they are reading, until they feel like they are having a conversation with the author. Adler emphasizes marking in a book keeps the reader mentally awake, helps their thoughts become more alive, and also remember later what
His opinion that complex novels are better than simple ones is reflected in his writing style, which although is fluid, is also complex and challenging. This causes readers to carefully think about his words. By using elongated rhetorical questions Thoreau leads people to think about the importance of reading the finest novels, and the seemingly poetic tone he uses shows the beauty that a wise, focused, and hard-working intellectual could produce if he or she tried. An additional technique that is used is polysyndeton. Expressed in the majority of the sentences in chapter three, polysyndeton smoothly emphasizes the ideas in every sentence and makes readers focused. In addition, to show the importance of taking time to analyze classic novels, Thoreau uses impactful words such as “emulate” and “consecrate” when saying, “…he in some measure emulate their heroes and consecrate morning hours to their pages”. The strong effect of those words shows the importance of these novels and the dedication required to fully grasp their meaning. He also says that authors are a natural aristocracy, which shows the high regard he has for novels, and even says that books are “trophies in the forum of the world”. He thinks novels of importance are so universally valuable that they are synonymous to trophies. Nouns such as aristocracy and trophies stand out and help readers to realize the great worth that those traditional novels
When a novel is revealing, witty and whimsical it unlocks the hidden truths about literature as discussed in the book How To Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas Foster. This book is written in second person so the reader can experience Foster’s personality that is directed towards them. A reader is given a fresh and clear perception on literature to understand what is being read. Foster clarifies the way writers uses symbols and themes. He believes by analyzing the deeper meaning in literature will help foster a better reader.
When people read they often just skim through, “Although there are virtues to skimming, the vast majority of writing tasks you will encounter in college and in the workplace require your conversancy with material you have read.” (David Rosenwasser, of Home from Nowhere:Remaking Our Everyday World for the Twenty-first Century, as Rosenwasser defines, become conversant 107).
Before we divulge into the topic of this essay, let me begin by stating that neither the author of the main source, Steven Johnson, nor I intend to devalue books or look down upon them. In his book, Everything Bad Is Good For You, he starts off talking about the importance of books. He says, “We should all encourage our kids to read more, to develop a comfort with and an appetite for reading” (Johnson 21). Reading provides many different benefits, some including “concentration, the ability to make sense of words, to follow narrative threads, to sculpt imagined worlds out of mere sentences on pages” (Johnson 23). As an avid reader myself, I have always had an interest in books.
While deciphering text can be mundane, studies have shown that “reading has cognitive consequences that extend beyond its immediate task of lifting meaning from a particular passage” (Cunningham 137). Reading not only makes you smarter, but makes you rhetorically analyze things better. The skills that you gain through reading last a lifetime, not just for reading the latest Twilight book. In The Lonely, Good Company of Books, Richard Rodriguez describes himself as a small child looking at reading posters on the wall of his school.
"How to Mark a Book" by Mortimer J. Adler is an essay over the author 's belief on the importance of marking or writing inside a book. Adler 's primary purpose is persuasive. He writes to convince the reader to partake in writing in one 's own books when reading to become more efficient. Adler 's secondary purpose is expressive because of the way he describes his least favorite type of reader: "There are three kinds of book owners. The first has all the standard sets and best-sellers - unread, untouched. This deluded individual owns woodpulp and ink, not books" (17-6).