Is a used book with highlighting/underlining/etc. even worth keeping?

Is a used book with highlighting/underlining/etc. even worth keeping?

Ever notice how with school books they always stop underlining/taking notes after a couple chapters? I've literally never found a used book where they kept up that pseud charade for the whole text.

People who underline with pen should be drawn and quartered.

Disgusting savages.

When you care enough to mark up the whole book, you're probably not interested in selling it for pennies on the dollar.

One time Veeky Forums convinced me to try annotating a book, and about a third of the way through I realized how fucking stupid it was and stopped.

Now every time I look at the book on my shelf I just want to replace it.

do you guys actually own many marked up bookz? you think there's anything wrong w/them?

You don't need to annotate all the time but if you say no to annotation completely and wholly then you are a pleb who doesn't know what he's doing.

sometimes my annotations aren't even related to what I'm reading...I tend to write a lot in whatever I'm reading, sort of in lieu of keeping a journal

yes, of course

It's like clockwork; I love it. I don't blame the pour souls, though, me being one of them. English teachers turn books into bores with a sinister flair.

I've wondered if anyone has found a used book, and bought it because of the annotations, because they were interested in someone thought? I've never done this, but I've gotten used books for school, and sometimes I see something marked, and I'm curious why they did it, not that it was a stupid thing to note, but something I wouldn't have.

I think it's interesting, but I wouldn't buy a book because of it unless it was Mark Twain funny.

Eh. I really like annotated books, and if they are, they're usually only a buck. Nobody has the gall to ask a lot for a book that was written in.

I'm always embarrassed that I'm going to be judged for what I underline. The worst is when I accidentally underline a whole paragraph and it looks like I'm just underlining everything.

I hate it when a there is a requirement to annotate and I have to show my work to other people in a group setting to prove that I read something. I've learned how to fake it. I use multiple colors and a combo of highlighter and pen, with pencil notes and arrows. The key is making it look complex, so it looks like there is a system that makes sense, when there isn't. I play up the distracted genius with adhd character I play, and it seems to work ok. So while being paralyzed with fear of spilling my spaghetti, it looks like I'm off in distant thought occasionally popping in to answer questions or make some kind of pun or hijack a lame teacher joke with something more offensive and clever. I keep score of laughs, and my average is pretty high. I have all sorts of techniques to get out of a lame joke that falls flat. Getting girls to laugh is way easier then you'd think, the real judge are the guys.

All to try and hide the fact that I have bad hand writing and can't spell. I think I have them fooled that I'm not dyslexic or actually very well educated at all. Sooner or later people will find out that I'm faking being smart, but the classes I'm in are not exactly very advance. Very few have made the connection. Real smart nerds are never brave enough to challenge me publicly.

>don't underline, it reviles your thought process to anyone who looks at it. If you don't cringe at what you thought was important on a subject years ago, then you arn't learning new things.

I actually got an old copy of Ulysses for a dollar that had a shitton of helpful notes and highlighting. The annotations actually made reading smoother than having to Google all the Latin and references.

The worst is getting an old book from a university library that has multiple layers of marginalia from successive generations of students. Sometimes it's so bad that literally every page has been marked the fuck up with underlining, highlighting, notes, and asterisks. I don't understand why the library doesn't just toss books like that in the recycling and buy new ones, god knows they have enough money with the tuition we pay.

Almost all of my books are second hand, and a few have notes/underlines, it's not very annoying as long as it's not all over the place.

One of my Greek play books has some penciled in Greek writing too, I should ask someone to translate it

I leave bogus highlights in my textbooks when I sell them. Dudebro morons who are only in college because mommy and daddy have money see highlights and think they just got a textbook with cheatcodes to their course or something. Part of me hopes that it fucks someone over because they are too dumb to read it for themselves.

This cracks me up, but never more than when I'm buying some relatively advanced text used online.

"Light underlining, only on first 20 pages." Yup sounds about right.

I just can't picture the levels of autism that compel some retard to make markings in a library book

I picked up the Penguin Classics Falges translation of the Odyssey for tree fiddy, and in seemingly good condition too, until I opened the book. Some moron highlighted lines in dark blue and green, and made notes with them as well. Unfortunately, I had to buy it since it was the only Fagles translation my local used bookstore had. The good news is, I picked up the most up-to-date edition of Basic Economics for $3.20, and there were only a few underlines and notes made in pencil.

That's why you buy from ebay.

You might be the stupidest person on this board

You couldn't pay me to read Basic Economics again. With economists like him it's no wonder the economy is in ruins.

This is a girlpost.

Do you want to be my gf?

This. We all know everything would be better if I was chief planner of the central committee.

I also use the preface as a bookmark.
Books are nothing special, the're just paper made to be used.

I return them to the store and ask for refund. Most decent used bookstores try to not stock marked books.

yeah when i was a student i was given a textbook that had loads of markings left by a former student who had taken the same course years before

their annotations were better than the actual book. they fixed loads of mistakes and improved some of the formulae and so on. the annotations really helped me get through the course.

turns out the student that made the annotations later became the potions master at the same school. i mean what are the chances of that happening

I'm about to annotate my first book ever, and the victim is Jane Austen's Emma. I've always just never felt the need to mark up my books, but maybe if I force myself I'll just naturally read more carefully and with more insight. I've made notes of the dangers of poor note taking discussed in this thread, so wish me luck friends.

I genuinely don't get bookmarks. I've always been able to eyeball where my place is, then no more than 3 flips to the exact page I was on.

I recently had a book, maybe 400 pages or so, where the previous owner really did keep up the notetaking through the whole thing. I came to enjoy seeing their input and random scribblings throughout the story. When I got to the end and closed it, it suddenly hit me that I'd developed a minor attachment to this person. I was sad that it would be the full extent of my interaction with them and that they're gone from my life forever. It was like losing a friend

If it's my copy maybe. If it's a professor's copy I might be interested in what he or she is thinking

woo you're a true badass user

Only degenerates underline their books. Don't they know what an index card or even your phone's memo is?
Disgusting.

Autism.