February 14, 2018        Writing in the margins

         I read books on the craft of writing well and currently I am reading a book by Roy Peter Clark entitled “How to write short.”  I have been trying to write short and concise for years.  I read these books so I can apply the good stuff and then produce better blogs for my readers, you.  But, I found something interesting I want to share.

         Most of my the best books I’ve ever read have my notes in the margins, along with check marks, circled words or entire sentences underlined or bracketed, and sometimes even yellow sticky notes.  I always felt criminal about what I doing to the books I own. [Must be the Catholic in me.] I do the same to the magazines I read – especially The Weekly Standard. When it arrives, I inhale it – pen in hand circling, underlining, adding question marks and exclamation points and even shouting back rebuttals down and around the margins of the page.  That weekly read sure gets my heart pounding and my mind working and my husband reports I even yell out loud!

         But, it was a surprise to me that I am actually doing something right, I am comprehending and learning the right way. Who knew?

Let me give you a few excerpts from Chapter 6 entitled: Write in the margins.

         His professor, Dr. Rene Fortin, challenged his students:

          “To be a real reader,” he said, “you’ve got to mark up 

           the page.”

“ . . . . We had spent the last twelve years of our young lives learning that books were not our property.  They belonged to the school. ‘If you write in these books,” said one high school taskmaster, ‘your parents will be required to pay for them.’

“In a single class, Dr. Fortin persuaded us that what we once thought of as vandalism – writing in books – was an indispensable tool of learning.”

“To learn the craft of short writing, begin to think of marginalia as a genre.  It will help to remember that writing in the margins is for an audience of one – the writer. The purpose is not publication but learning, thinking, analyzing, discovering, and remembering.”

          "In the GRACE NOTES at the end of the chapter, 

          the author suggests:

1.   Never read a newspaper, magazine, or book without a pen nearby.  You already “talk back” to the author and text – at least in your mind.  Get in the habit of writing those thoughts in the margins of the page. And, the author suggests when you are finished reading, do a quick review of your marginal notes.

          Lastly, the author suggests you search the Internet to discover more about “marginalia” – I suggest you do the same - Interesting.

         If you have this same habit, writing in the margins, we are kindred souls and its good for us.