Teaching Philosopy: How to Mark a Book by Mortimer Adler

By “marking up a book”, Adler means to have a conversation with the author. To do so, one must actively read and make thoughtful annotations. Adler states, “Understanding is a two-way operation; learning doesn’t consist in being an empty receptacle” (Adler 19). With this, Adler makes the point that to fully understand what one is reading, one must slow down, read carefully, ask questions,

Speaker: Throughout his essay, “How to Mark a Book”, Mortimer J. Adler makes it especially clear that to understand a book and make it a part of yourself, you would have to destroy it with love. His passion for reading is extraordinary. He includes examples of how he expresses himself in the book from “making a personal index on the back end-papers” to “outlining the book [as an integrated structure]”. He encourages everyone to write in between the lines a book, but also making sure that you “acquire the idea and possessing the beauty of the book.” This simply shows that he goes far beyond than ordinary readers.

Whenever I read books, articles, etc. that I know I will be tested on or need to remember I make side notes and highlight. While reading I determine what I believe is most important. I pick out key terms, names, dates, and numbers. I might make side notes and summarize some things. I also like to highlight words or phrases I may be unsure of that I later look up the meaning so I have a better understanding of the text. After reading the essay, How to Mark A Book, by Mortimer J. Adler, my reading process isn't going to change much. I agree with Adler’s assertion that books are as much a part of your head or your heart. I believe this because people can learn a lot from things that they read. For example, you can learn about nature, different

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

"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).

When people read a book they normally read them for fun, or for homework. Books sometimes have a good plot and we cannot put it down, or people are just trying to pass the time. After reading “How to Mark a Book,” by Mortimer J. Adler, it changed my way of thinking and my way of fully understanding a book. Adler says, “I want to persuade you to ‘write between the lines.’ Unless you do, you are not likely to do the most efficient of reading” (Adler 1). People normally do not receive everything the author says when they just read a book. If the reader analyzes and writes down their thoughts, they can get more out of the book.

In Mortimer J. Adler’s article “How to Mark a Book,” he argues that you should mark up your book to note significant information. Adler argues, through rhetorical appeals and fallacies, that as you write in a book it becomes “absorbed in your bloodstream,” and allows you to fully own the book. As readers searching for these techniques we can become immune to the fallacies by recognizing them and thereby acknowledging the argument for what it truly is. "How to Mark A Book," uses an abundance of logos in addition to other convincing techniques to persuade you, the reader, to mark up your book.

In the article "How to Mark a Book" Mortimer Adler stated that if someone wants to mark up a book should own it not to borrow it from another person. He added real readers who they marked up their books, they only true ownership, but others are not because they just kept their books on shelves very clean. Adler described the books as painted art or music symphony. He mentioned some reasons of why we should mark up our books. Marking up and noting in a book make the reader active and interact with a book, and easy to understand and remember. In addition, he talked about the useful methods of noting a book such as underlining, circling, highlighting keywords, numbers, stars, asterisk, and lines at the margin. The writer concludes that he

Have you ever seen a word or phrase in a book you were reading and had no idea what it implied? By marking a book, you're gaining more knowledge and proficiency. After reading ‘How to Mark a Book’ by Mortimer J. Adler, I have learned that it is essential to mark a book. Considering there are two ways to own an book, people may mark their books differently. No matter how one marks a book, it is still the same amount of importance.

From my point of view, it is essential to mark a book because in this way you interact with the story. These notes will record what you read and they will keep you in synchronization with what the author write about. Having said that, I know someone that marks her book a lot and she uses a lot of the methods Adler mentioned in the essay. The person that I am talking about is my professor. One day I was in her class and saw that one book that she had in her

The speaker of this essay would be Mortimer J. Adler. He distinguishes the idea of an ordinary book owner to a real book owner and making the book a part of oneself. Adler uses a 2nd person narrative, addressing the reader as “You”, which creates a direct conversation between him and the reader.

I learned a very broad variety of English skills in my English 101 class. From the time of doing research before writing an essay, I wrote from the reader’s perspective, considering first what the reader would benefit from hearing. I discovered methods of writing so that the reader would be able to easily follow my ideas and notice the connection between them. Along with that, I learned to actively read what others wrote, alter my writing based off it, and courageously participate in the academic conversation. I acquired necessary language arts skills to participate in the academic conversation during my English 101 class.

Thanks to beginning a new school year about 200 miles away from everything I once knew, I quickly clung onto the proposition of taking everything more seriously. For starters, I began to touch up my writing skills and pay close attention to everything English class had to offer me. I first assimilated that in order to assemble an appropriate paper, one must know how to write a

Students will write numerous essays throughout their high school years, and most teachers adapt some form of in-class editing, or peer-editing. Though the problem with this is that poor editors do not just have an effect on their own writing and their own essay, but they affect others, as well. Students do not put as much time or effort into revising as they are required to do. The rough draft is meant to be byzantine, with the understanding that a thorough editor will comb through every sentence and completely tear it apart. “In a great swoosh of energy, [the writer] plunges into the writing, putting down everything that occurs to him in the first of what may turn out to be 9 or 10 drafts” (Epstein para. 10). Of course, it often ends up being a repetitive and extensive process; however, if it seems boring, then the editing is not being executed correctly. Though often perceived as tedious, editing an essay is indubitably the most enjoyable part of the writing process.

“There is no royal path to good writing; and such paths as exist…lead through…the jungles of the self, the world, and of craft” (Jessamyn West, qtd. in Lindemann 22). As West states, the method of creating “good writing” is as much an individual process as it is a challenging course to accomplish. How does one teach an individual process to a class of students? In order for instructors to teach this component, they need to provide students the opportunities to identify their individual process to become better writers. In the words of Erika Lindemann, author of A Rhetoric for Writing Teachers, “Writing involves not just one process but several”(22). In an attempt to answer the question, what does the process involve, Lindemann tackles the question by identifying what is universal about the writing process, with consideration to the individuality of the student writer.