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How to increase reading retention?

Does underlining, annotating, and making other marks while reading increase comprehension and retention of what's read? Or is it just making a mess of a perfectly good page?

  • Answer:

    I've seen so many library books where just about every other sentence is underlined (in pen, of course) for the first several chapters. After that point the underlining stops almost completely. The same is true for used books on sale. This suggests that the readers couldn't choose the most salient points. It also suggests, not coincidentally, that they gave up reading after a little while. The annotations seem more like things said by teachers than what readers would write on their own, e.g., "Moby Dick = symbol of existential evil." If I own a book and find a passage worth noting, I'll put a bracket at the beginning and the end, in pencil; and that's about it. I don't add comments, as if needing to remember what I think. At most, while reading a book of poems, I'll put check marks above the titles of the ones I'd most like to read again.

John James Morton at Quora Visit the source

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I've read somewhere (a research published in Reader's Digest) that underlining, highlighting, and annotating (and even writing) helps the reader remember the words much better than just doing nothing at all. This is just the same as when you doodle during a lecture or seminar. It will help you recall certain things and emphasize subject matter. Personally, I do all these things with materials that I own; and yes, it helps. :)

Ivy Soon

maybe annotating, but otherwise I think you're just marking for future reference.  Underlining helps me to find things later, but I don't remember it any better.  Thinking about what you just read, mentally applying it somehow usually makes it stick better.

Brandon Kamita

Underlining helps for future reference and also it can help in concentration as u will be making sure what to underline and what not to

Nitish Mehta

In nonfiction it may be helpful, but I find it distracting when reading fiction.  I don't annotate or underline anything in a work of fiction.  When I attempt to do that it takes me out of the story and I find that I retain less.  If a particular passage strikes me as beautiful or insightful, I will mark it with a post-it and write it in a journal later.  For me, this is beneficial because I can look through the journal without having to dig through a bunch of books.  If I were reading a book for school or analysis, I would read it twice.  The first time I would just read and soak in the story.  The second time I would take notes as I read.  My daughter is actually struggling with this right now, they are required to annotate their books for school and she finally talked him into letting her use a separate notebook for this.  She dislikes having her books marked up as much as I do.

Deborah Gahm

It helps. In fact, working annotation system (including sync and export) is one of biggest reasons for me to choose reading platform (Kindle passes here just barely. My current choice is Mantano Premium + their cloud service)

Vikarti Anatra

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