4 Note Taking Methods for Reading

Back in April, I made the following two posts on this subject - Why Note Taking While You Read is a Good Habit and 6 Tips for Taking Notes While Reading. These two posts were fun to write, so I thought I'd add on to them with a few more posts this month.

In the two posts I linked above, I talked about why note taking is a good habit to have while reading. I also gave 6 general tips for taking notes while reading. Over the next couple of days, I want to go into a bit more detail about the different methods for note taking while reading a book. (Yes, this is similar to the series I did on bookshelf organization at the end of last month.)

So without further ado, let's get into the different note taking methods for reading.

Marginalia: Marginalia essentially means "marginal notes," and these are notes that are taken within the margins of the book. Have you seen a book with writing in the margins? That's marginalia. Marginalia also includes highlighting and/or underlining passages in a book. And no, this is not a bad thing. Yes, it's "controversial" in the bookish community, but I'll talk about that in another post.

Post-It Notes: We all know what post-its are and look like. It's similar to marginalia where you can write on the post-it notes and stick those notes in the book, but you're not writing directly on you book. Post-it notes are convenient, because most of us have easy access to them.

Notebooks: Journaling has become a big thing lately, which is great. And if you're a big reader, you could use one of your notebooks and/or journals as a reading journal/notebook. Just remember: try to come up with an effective way to take notes while reading, since you will be hand writing the notes in a completely separate place from the book.

Electronic Documents: This can be a safe bet if you want to take notes in a different place from your book but don't want to hand write everything down. You can name the document using the title of the book, and it's easier to organize, add, and delete notes when and where you deem necessary. However, I'd recommend having a specific organization method for taking your notes this way.