I've been reading nonfiction for a fair amount of time, but have just recently decided to try out taking notes for better memory retention. I have a giant (maybe irrational) fear of ruining the book though, and therefore have no idea where to even begin. I've thought about just writing a short one-sentence summary of each page/paragraph above it describing the most important points - would that work out? And then maybe summarizing all of those above the chapters' title. The quality of the book I'm reading is kind of crappy and the eraser erases a little of the ink as well, so 'just write with a pencil bro' won't work. I've even heard of some people writing between lines, but again, I'm very much scared of ruining the book when I'll decide to read it again and will have to wade through tons of text handwritten everywhere.

Use book and write the page number? The fuck is wrong with you.

writing in the book is a bad meme, just get a small notebook on the side

>wroting in the book
EW
don't be nasty. get a notebook

>>24532195 (OP)
writing in the book is a woman thing

>>24532268
>>24532257
Cowards. Writing in a book is an authentic act - it's the physical manifestation of the phenomenon of learning, i.e. making the content of the article one's own. It's a physical marking of a new territory, an adversarial act against the author - the reader knows better what belongs in the book. Just as the physical copy of the book is his now, the content inside is his too: both physically and psychologically.

I've never needed to take notes for memory retention, I've always been very good at absorbing the gist of whatever I read and being able to summarize and paraphrase purely from memory. I only used two forms of notes while reading. The first were sticky notes that marked pages I wanted to quote in essays, and the second were mini-essays I wrote upon completing a book or a chapter of a longer book.

I used sticky notes because I don't like marking up books, and because I don't have an eidetic memory. I can distill the content of a text in memory, but I can't quote it verbatim unless I take special effort to commit the words exactly to memory.

The mini-essays were originally an assignment I did as an undergrad English major that I took a liking to as a way to organize my thoughts after finishing a text, or a significant part of a text. It makes for a nice companion-piece to the primary text, so that when I go back and reread the primary text, I can reread my mini-essay, and see if I still agree with what I wrote before, or if my perspective has changed. Generally these mini-essays are less than 1000 words. I don't get into the weeds, I just summarize and give any impressions I have of the text.

>>24532288
I don't really care what somebody does with their own copy of a book, I just don't like marking my copies. Though I would probably be upset if I saw somebody marking up a rare or very old book, purely from a preservationist perspective.

>>24532304
Spooked.

>>24532195 (OP)
I have never taken notes while reading in my life.
For what is the actual purpose? Do you not remember the whole book in its entirety? A shit book is not worth remembering - and I would imagine it is also not worth annotating.

>>24532195 (OP)
I always read the book first without taking notes and remember what I've read. Then I think about the parts that stand out to me the most and mull over them just before sleep for several nights. I can then do a second read. This time it's accompanied by a diary where I write the rest of the notes.

>>24532357
I write with a pencil in most of my fiction books. The book is cheap and I own it, I have no issue defacing it. But that's not what I do.
>I highlight new vocabulary and interesting comparisons/metaphores so that I may copy them in a notebook at the end of the chapter/book.
>I put a large bracket on the side of the sections I find beautifully written, or that do something in an interesting way
>I write heat-of-the-moment observations in the margins, questions, anticipations, so that I force them to pass through the language part of my brain. Otherwise they're just fleeting, abstract ponderings that aren't any more durable than emotions.
I do all that at a humble level to understand how the work is built, to learn how I eventually could do it myself.

>>24532522
To be clear I don't do that with sci-fi or fantasy. It's not what I want to write.

>>24532195 (OP)
>writing a short one-sentence [...] the most important points
reminds me of those women bashing posts of femtards making studying into a social media performance
this is stupid and won't do anything for your learning or memory retention. use your notes to structure relationships and explore questions that the information urges from you. if the book is well written, your curiosities should be designed, and the proceeding information will address them. if not then you can just look that shit up on your own
you only write the contents of the book to ground and give context for your future self. you can leave a marker and jump to it to reread, but when you just need to reference a line or single concept and you're reviewing pages of information, you'll be thankful to not be flipping between pages and book/notebook constantly
>>24532357
the human memory is garbage. you will forget things
notes are just a materialization of the thoughts you have when reading. because they're made concrete, you can come back to them and further develop them, bringing with you insights you didn't have at the time of conception
in this process you deepen your understanding of the material. it is truly foolish to begin a reading with the intent of learning then walk away with surface level first impressions and fragmentary memories

>>24532195 (OP)
You should think strongly about why you want to take notes/ retain the information better, and why exactly you don't want to damage the book.
Personally, I sometimes lend out books to people and I wouldn't want my handwriting all over them, because it's messy and I would consider it quite cringe for someone else to read my notes. Also I tend to donate books I don't want and I wouldn't want them to be pulped immediately based off damage from scribbles.
I also don't think there's much to gain from writing in books, at least not for your purpose of trying to encourage retention, there isn't any space on the page to write in depth stuff. All you can really do is underline certain phrases. That can be handy if you like to have IRL discussions about the stuff in your books, and it means if there's a point that you remember was brought up you'll be able to go back and find it more easily, but you could also summarise points more easily by rewording them in a dedicated notebook, and maybe also put page numbers and citations in there to easily go back to the book itself.
tldr if you have an actual reason you don't want to write in the book akin to the ones mentioned above just get a notebook, it's better anyway for what you're aiming to do. Rephrasing arguments in your own words is actually one of the best ways to engage with and remember material.

>>24532195 (OP)
>I'm very much scared of ruining the book when I'll decide to read it again and will have to wade through tons of text handwritten everywhere
quit being a poorfag and buy a second copy

>>24532195 (OP)
I dont't

We dont

>>24532195 (OP)
I read PDFs on Zotero and then open a onenote window tiled to the other half of the screen. Sometimes I double dip and annotate the text and the independent note.

For a work of fiction I will often write a brief summary of the chapter or things that come to mind.

Otherwise as in a work of philosophy I basically keep a running summary of the work to revisit later to condense further into a review that will really solidify things in my mind. I hated book reports as a kid, or maybe I never had to do them, but I actually enjoy doing them these days...

>>24532195 (OP)
i don't take notes