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.

[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.