In Defense of Dog- Eared Pages: Why You Should Absolutely Write in Your Books

By: Sydney Foster

There are two kinds of readers: the ones who keep their books in pristine, untouched condition…and the ones who immediately grab a pen.

If you’ve ever felt even a tiny bit guilty about underlining a sentence or scribbling in the margins, this is your official permission slip. Writing in your books isn’t ruining them. It’s using them.

It means highlighting lines you love, circling words you don’t understand, writing “WHAT??” in the margins when a character makes a terrible decision or drawing a little star next to a quote that hits a little too close to home.

And honestly? That’s when reading gets good.

What Annotation Actually Looks Like

You don’t need an aesthetic Pinterest setup or color-coded perfection. At its simplest, annotating just means leaving evidence that you were there.

Some easy ways to start:

• Highlight quotes that feel important or beautifully written.

• Underline moments that reveal something big about a character.

• Write in the margins when you notice a theme, a symbol, or a pattern.

Use simple symbols like a question mark for confusion, an exclamation points for surprise, or a star for something important.

The only real caution? Don’t highlight everything. If the whole page is neon, nothing stands out.

Why It Works in Literature

When you’re reading fiction, annotation becomes a way to track what’s unfolding beneath the surface.

You might start noticing:

• Recurring symbols

• Shifts in tone

• Character development

• Patterns in imagery

• Lines that quietly hint at future events

Writing these things down helps you see them. Instead of thinking, “I feel like this theme keeps showing up,” you can flip back and prove it to yourself.

Annotating Poetry (Which Honestly Deserves Its Own Section)

Poetry especially benefits from annotation because so much is packed into so few words.

When you annotate poetry, you might:

• Circle repeated words or images

• Mark shifts in tone or speaker

• Paraphrase confusing lines in the margins

• Note figurative language like metaphors or personification

• Track sound devices like rhyme or alliteration

Poems often don’t hand you their meaning. They hint at it. Annotating slows you down enough to notice those hints.

So go ahead. Underline the sentence. Write the dramatic reaction in the margins. Stick the neon tab on the page that wrecked you emotionally. Make the book yours. After all, you paid way too much for that pretty hardcopy to just let it collect dust.