Reading is supposed to be relaxing. At least, that’s what the movies tell us. You sit in a leather chair, sip some tea, and absorb wisdom through osmosis. But honestly? If you’re just letting your eyes glide over the ink, you’re probably forgetting half of it by dinner. Real reading—the kind that changes how you think—is a contact sport. It’s messy. You need to talk back to the author. Learning how to make notes in a book is less about "organizing information" and more about having a heated argument (or a deep heart-to-heart) with a bunch of paper.
People get precious about books. They treat them like museum artifacts. I used to be one of those people. I’d cringe at a dog-eared page or a stray ink mark. But then I realized that a pristine book is a lonely book. It means you were a passive observer. When you start "marginalia"—the fancy term for scribbling in the margins—the book becomes a physical record of your thoughts at a specific moment in time. It’s a gift to your future self.
The psychology of why we scribble
Mortimer Adler literally wrote the book on this. In his 1940 essay How to Mark a Book, he argued that you don't truly own a book until you've made it a part of yourself, and the best way to do that is to write in it. It’s about active reading. When you’re looking for how to make notes in a book, you’re actually looking for a way to stay awake. Your brain is lazy. If it can zone out, it will. Writing forces you to process the sentence, weigh it against what you already know, and spit out a reaction.
There's also the "generation effect." Research in cognitive psychology suggests that information is better remembered if it is generated from one's own mind rather than simply read. By paraphrasing a complex idea in the margin, you're not just recording it; you're re-manufacturing it. You are literally building new neural pathways. It's the difference between watching a workout video and actually doing the push-ups.
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Forget the "rules" and find your own shorthand
Stop trying to make your notes look like a Pinterest board. If you spend twenty minutes switching between five different colored highlighters, you aren’t reading—you’re scrapbooking. Real marginalia is fast. It’s visceral. You need a system that doesn't get in the way of the story or the argument.
Most experts use a mix of symbols. A vertical line in the margin for a long passage that resonates. An exclamation point for something surprising. A question mark for "this sounds like total nonsense." Some people, like the historian Robert Darnton, have studied how readers in the 18th century used to keep "commonplace books," where they would transcribe favorite passages alongside their own biting commentary. You don't have to be that formal. Use "LOL" if something is funny. Use a frowny face if the author is being a jerk.
- The Bracket: Use these for sentences you want to steal later.
- The Circle: Best for keywords or names you need to track.
- The Anchor: Draw a little arrow to connect an idea on page 50 to a contradictory point on page 10. This is how you spot "cracks" in an author's logic.
Marginalia as a conversation
Think of the margins as a chat room. When the author says something provocative, don't just underline it. Ask "Why?" or write "Prove it." When you engage this way, you’re practicing what's often called "dialogic reading." It’s basically a duet.
Bill Gates is famous for this. He’s known to fill the margins of his books with deep, sometimes critical, notes. If he disagrees with a premise in a book about climate change or global health, he writes it down right there. He isn’t just consuming content; he’s stress-testing it. You should do the same. If a paragraph makes you angry, lean into that. Write "This is wrong because..." in the white space. That's where the real learning happens.
What about the "Book Longevity" anxiety?
I get it. You might want to sell the book later. Or maybe you think you're "defacing" art. If you really can't bring yourself to use a pen, use a pencil. A soft 2B pencil feels incredible on book paper. It’s tactile, it’s erasable, and it smells like middle school nostalgia.
If even a pencil feels like sacrilege, use post-it notes. But be careful. Over time, the adhesive on cheap sticky notes can actually damage the paper fibers or leave a residue. If you’re going the post-it route, stick to high-quality brands or use those tiny transparent film tabs to mark pages without obscuring the text. But honestly? Just use a pen. A cheap Bic or a nice fountain pen—it doesn't matter. The ink makes it permanent. It makes the book yours.
The "Index" hack for non-fiction
This is the game-changer for anyone reading for self-improvement or business. The front and back flyleaves—those blank white pages at the start and end of the book—are prime real estate. Don't leave them empty.
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As you read, create your own custom index on the back page. If you find a great tip on "negotiation" on page 42, go to the back and write: Negotiation: p. 42. By the time you finish the book, you have a personalized map of exactly where the most valuable nuggets are buried. You won't have to flip through 300 pages ever again to find that one quote you vaguely remember.
Making notes in digital books (Kindle/iPad)
We have to talk about the digital elephant in the room. How to make notes in a book when the "book" is a screen? It's convenient, sure. You can highlight with a thumb-drag and export everything to a Notion doc. But something is lost in translation.
The spatial memory of a physical book—remembering that a certain fact was on the "bottom left of a page about halfway through"—is a huge part of how our brains index information. On a Kindle, everything is flat. To compensate, you have to be even more aggressive with your digital notes. Don't just highlight. Use the "Add Note" feature to type out why you highlighted it. Digital highlights without context are where ideas go to die.
Actionable steps for your next read
Don't overthink this. Pick up the book you’re currently reading and do these three things immediately:
- Grab a pen. Put it in the spine or clip it to the cover. If you have to go look for a pen, you won't take the note.
- Summarize chapters. At the end of every chapter, find the small bit of white space at the bottom and write one sentence that sums up the main point. Just one.
- Talk back. Find one thing in the next ten pages you disagree with and write "No" in the margin. Even if you're wrong, the act of disagreeing makes you a sharper reader.
Reading isn't a one-way street. It's a bridge. When you write in your books, you're building your side of that bridge. You're turning a mass-produced object into a one-of-a-kind artifact of your own intellect. So, stop being polite to your books. Scuff them up. Stain them with coffee. Fill them with your messy, brilliant, half-formed thoughts. That is how you truly read.