Can you write on a textbook?

[WhiteCrow]

Okay we're not talking here about "drawing willies on soldiers from Berlin to Damascus".

I've a new textbook to work through on Test Management. It's mine, I bought it from Amazon.

To really get the best of a textbook though I know the best thing to do is get a pen - make notes in the margins, fold over the corners of important pages.

Only I find it incredibly difficult to do that - it's like something saying "no - keep the precious book in pristine condition". Even though I know I get much more from the book by making notes on the page, and even correction mistakes on the page, it's almost a thing I've got to fight to do.

So are you a textbook defacer?

Si Hart - I'd obviously never think of defacing a library book. Before I'm accused of encouraging library property damage!

[SiHart]

I get very frustrated by people who borrow library books and scribble all over them. At least, if you're going to do it, then do it in pencil and rub it out before you bring it back.

However, I think if it's your own book then fine, do with it what you want. A textbook is meant for study and if annotating it and making your own notes next to the relevant bits helps then fine. Certainly my poetry books and plays from my Uni days are generally scrawled all over in a way that i probably wouldn't deface any of my other books. But yes I know what you mean, it doesn't always feel right, does it?

Si xx

[Captain Tancredi]

I once borrowed a copy of 'Doctor Who and the Sunmakers' from my local library which had an obscenity written inside the front cover. Or it may have been somebody's review of the book- I don't know.

To put it in perspective, I know (or knew) a number of Christians who marked or highlighted verses in their Bibles which were important to them. Perhaps not necessarily in their "best" copy, but in the one they tended to use for private reflection and so on.

[Ralph]

Be bold and make your mark!

[Rob McCow]

Here's what I learned in school:

It's fine to write in the fingering on a piece of music. It's OK to write a few notes on a science textbook. It's a good idea to annotate a novel you're studying for an English Literature course.

It's not OK to go through all the photographs in a German Language text book and draw big penises on all the people.

Here endeth the lesson.

[Paul Monk]

I've just done a course and exam where it was essential to do just that. My copies of ADR 2007 have notes, extra pages stuck in and post-it markers all over the pages. Without them I would have been hopelessly lost. And they cost a lot of money too.

[Stuart Wallis]

I wouldn't do it myself, and the only time I've agreed with doing it is when I saw a pencilled-in annotation correcting a glaring error which said that Rimsky-Korsakov, Stravinsky and Tchaicovski were invented for a list of Russian composers performed by Danny Kaye.

I'll get me anorak...

[Captain Tancredi]

It's not OK to go through all the photographs in a German Language text book and draw big penises on all the people.

Apart from anything else, they're all German so they should really be on the small side...

[SiHart]

I don't like to ask how you know that...

Si xx

[Jeff]

Apart from anything else, they're all German so they should really be on the small side...

OY! WTF!! Watch it, buddy!

[Jamie McCrimmon]

Every book I own, which has been a study book, is covered in scrawls. I write all over them, summarising passages, disagreeing or raising questions to chase up. I draw diagrams to clarify the text, fold pages, and highlight paragraphs. It's not a sacred object, it's a tool.