Ruled

[cbertsch]

People sometimes ask me why I don't write in my books. "I don't write in my books anymore," I tell them. This is why:

The underlining in red is from the fall of 1994. It postdates the underlining in black by several years. What you can't see here are the eraser marks that indicate where I erased a line for not being straight enough or a word for being too sloppily formed. Yes, "the distracted person, too, can form habits," particularly when those habits constitute the perfect distraction.

Comments

[art-thirst.livejournal.com]

I don't often write in my books. If I do, it's usually to mark a item for quotation. I usually have a notepad and write something like footnotes with the text and page numbers. One of the recent library books I scanned the quotes since there were many. The book I'm reading now has marking on almost every page, underlining, short notations, etc. But, it's a library book and VERY annoying to read. I've tried to erase the pencil underlinings but lots of them are in ink. I think that's disrespectful of the institutions property.

[cbertsch.livejournal.com]

I'd never write in a library book!

[art-thirst.livejournal.com]

That's what I'm saying!

[jakemacalister.livejournal.com]

There are two books one should never write in: a library book or a book you borrow from a prof. If you borrow a book, it doesn't belong to you (although library books seem to belong to everyone). My dad is a professor and he hates it when he gets books back from students with markings. They used pen, as well.

[cbertsch.livejournal.com]

Evil!

[art-thirst.livejournal.com]

I mark lightly in books where I want to get a quote but, I never underline, not even my own books. I also erase my penciling of 'brackets'!

[jakemacalister.livejournal.com]

I still underline or bracket, but I don't write. One of my old profs would give us articles where she went through and interacted with the text [underlining, highlighting in color which was picked up by the photocopier, and comments: yeah!,what?!?,not!]. You felt guilty if you didn't underline where she did, but you could definitely follow her "conversation" with the author. One of my old boyfriends always fought with me because I marked my texts. I use a triangle symbol in the corner so I remember what page the quote is on for my queer theory/mimetic triangle papers, but that's about it.

[cbertsch.livejournal.com]

I use tape flags now because they are removable. I go out of my way not to share my conversation with the author with my students. I like clean copies for making readers and the like. But different strokes for different folks, right? I do turn down page corners. . . :-)

[jakemacalister.livejournal.com]

She did this purposefully, I believe so she could shape our reading. I hated it so much that I would buy the book that articles came from and thought of turning her in to the copyright police. Kudos to you for allowing your students to think and read for themselves. There is a big difference between helping your students learn how to read and doing it for them. She’s the Renaissance specialist and very much holds court like Elizabeth I. She had a picture of Elizabeth in her locker in high school and had a perm so she could look like the queen. Do you find that people waste a lot of time trying to build a life instead of living it. I have a friend getting his Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology who did his sitting room to model Freud’s office. WTF. I would be happy with a laptop. Sorry for the tangent.

[cbertsch.livejournal.com]

Personally I'm trying to make my home office look like a spatial extension of Walter Benjamin's Arcades Project!

[jakemacalister.livejournal.com]

LOL. My lit. crit. class was so shitty that I had to look up your reference. I chuckled after I did a little reading. I mean shitty, it was a terrible book with no help at all from the prof. We read his poetry (very, very, bad--William Carlos Williams knock-offs) and analyzed that. It is hard to do a New Criticism critique with the poet standing over your shoulder. "Look at how I physically shifted the lines of the poem to give a visual representation of meandering--see the structure . . . what do you mean Northrope Fry?"

He then had the audacity to try to low-pass me on my comps . . . funny none of his poems showed up on those.