There are all kinds of devices for marking a book intelligently and fruitfully. Here's the way I do it:
在书上作记号,有各种各样好的、行之有效的方法。现将我的做法叙述如下:
1. Underlining: of major points, of important or forceful statements.
1.在文字下面划线:划出主要论点及重要的或者有力的论述。
2. Vertical lines at the margin: to emphasize a statement already underlined.
2.在页边空白处划竖线:强调已划线的论述部分。
3. Star, asterisk, or other doo-dad at the margin: to be used sparingly, to emphasize the ten or twenty most important statements in the book.
3.在页边空白处画五星或六星记号,或其他小符号:这种记号宜珍惜着用。可用来强调书中十处或二十处最重要的论述。
4. Numbers in the margin: to indicate the sequence of points the author makes in developing a single argument.
4.在页边空白处写数字:标明作者展开一个论据的各点顺序。
5. Numbers of other pages in the margin: to indicate where else in the book the author made points relevant to the point marked; to tie up the ideas in a book, which, though they may be separated by many pages, belong together.
5.在页边空处写其他页的页码:标明作者在本书其他地方所写的与本论点有关的论点,也可以通过这一办法将书中虽分散各处,但密切有关的观点联系起来。
6. Circling of key words or phrases.
6.在关键字眼或短语上画圈圈。
7. Writing in the margin, or at the top or bottom of the page, for the sake of: recording questions (and perhaps answers) which a passage raised in your mind; reducing a complicated discussion to a simple statement; recording the sequence of major points right through thebook. I use the end-papers at the back of the book to make a personal index of the author's points in the order of their appearance.
7.在页边空白处或上下两端加批注:其目的是记下某段文章在你脑子里引起的问题(也许还有答案);简要记下复杂的论述;记录贯串全书的一系列的重要论点。我利用书末的衬页将作者的观点按出现的先后次序编成一个索引。
The front end-papers are, to me, the most important. Some people reserve them for a fancy bookplate. I reserve them for fancy thinking. After I have finished reading the book and making my personal index on the back end-papers, I turn to the front and try to outline thebook, not page by page, or point by point (I've already done that at the back), but as an integrated structure, with a basic unity and an order of parts. This outline is, to me, the measure of my understanding of the work.
书前的衬页对我来说是最重要的。有些人将它们留作贴花哨的藏书票用。我将它们留作奇思异想的天地。在我读完一本书并在卷尾衬页上做好我的个人索引之后,我便翻到卷首,试着将全书作一概述,不是逐页地或逐点地进行(那个我在卷尾已经做了),而是作为一个整体,基本上前后连贯,各部分排列有序。对我来说,这个概述表明了我对该著作理解的程度。