Systems for marking books

[Carl]

Anyone else out there who has a system they use to mark their books while reading them? I found that if I use a uniform system to mark any books I read, I can find the information I may want from them later on without having to search for very long. I haphazardly came up with my own, but I'd like to know if anyone else does this, and how they go about it. Here's what I do now, but I'm not completely set on it:



- New/unfamiliar word: underline with red pen
(I also like to write down in pencil the date I learned what the word meant. It's interesting to me to see how my vocabulary widens over time.)

- Direct quotations that I find remarkable: highlight in blue
i.e.: “In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him" (Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card). *gets chills,* *highlights*

- Interesting facts or important details: highlight in yellow
i.e.: "That might be foreshadowing..." *highlights*; or, "Wow, I didn't know that he was a contemporary of the person in this biography." *highlights*

- Miscellaneous/not sure how to categorize: underline in black ink or pencil



I don't like using highlighter, mainly because it's just too thick. I think I'd rather use different colored pens to underline the sections that I listed as highlighted.

Any thoughts or suggestions? I could probably make more specific categories to further organize my thoughts on the book, but I'm not sure how best to go about it.

[Scott]

[Justanotherbiblophile]

Scott wrote: ""

This is a thing people do. In the past, so much so, that there're terms for it: scholiast, who typically wrote marginalia.

Of course it destroys resell value, and is completely obnoxious to anyone else who might read the book - unless you're Fermat.

Carl should get an e-reader. :D

I try to have a clipboard, and take notes. But it's hard, when you're curled up in bed reading a book.