digest
Short Summary
Main recommendation: Take book notes using a three-step method: read slowly and annotate minimally (including sorting as part of exporting), export key quotes onto note cards by hand, and then actively reflect on them by teaching, writing letters, or writing summaries. Jared Henderson argues that this method, which he describes as the one that works for him after years of trying more complicated systems, is what helps you remember and truly understand what you read.
Key Points
- Annotate with restraint: over-underlining, underlining only, and long marginal notes made Henderson's old copy of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics nearly useless and left no room for future rereads.
- Use a varied, deliberate annotation system (pencil, brackets for whole passages, circles for words to define, stars for key passages, question marks for confusion) so that markings carry meaning.
- Export by manually copying quotes onto note cards rather than automating; the act of copying forces you to decide what matters and helps retention.
- Sort and group the note cards by theme, and combine cards across books when researching a topic.
- Add a third step, active reflection, which he says he had been missing: explain the material to someone who knows slightly less than you, or write letters to dead authors.
Details Worth Noting
- Concrete instructions:
- Read slowly and pay full attention; do not skip the reading step.
- Annotate with a pencil and create your own symbol key, for example: underline important lines, use a bracket for a whole important passage, circle words to define or words used oddly, put a star by key passages, and put a question mark by anything confusing.
- Limit marginal writing to one or two words; if a comment is longer, write it on a separate note card.
- Add sticky tabs to flag where annotations are (optional; metal book tabs also work).
- Export by going through the book and handwriting quotes you think matter onto note cards. Keep quotes short, add a brief thought, and note the page number. Also note cited sources to review later, and define any unfamiliar vocabulary, historical references, or jargon.
- Sort the cards into piles by common theme; group cards from several books for research projects.
- Use paperclips to hold grouped note cards together.
- For active reflection, imagine teaching undergraduates slightly below your level: state the author's thesis, define key terms, explain arguments, and consider objections and complications.
- Alternatively, write letters to dead authors, raising criticisms and questions, and imagine their replies, as Andrew Lang did in Letters to Dead Authors (1886, public domain).
- If you use an app such as Obsidian or export highlights from a Kindle, still manually retype quotes rather than automating the process.
- Henderson's own practice: he does a weekly Substack read-along of Nicomachean Ethics (10 books, roughly 1,000 to 1,500 words per week), and says explaining it to readers revealed blind spots despite several prior readings.
Bottom Line
Slow, selective, handwritten note-taking followed by deliberate reflection turns reading into retained understanding, and the effort of the process is the point.
