Do you write in your textbooks?

[Stelle]

I would never write in a textbook - much less a novel.

But I do scribble all over workbooks. I write answers in coloured pen, tear out the answer key so that I can more easily check my work, dog-ear the pages, and have even been known to toss the besten-up book in the recycling bin when I'm done with it.

[reddragon]

When I was in school (a very long time ago lol), we were not allowed to write in any textbooks at all.

However I started a degree with the open university a while back, and they got me out of the habit.. They said use textbooks like workbooks, interact with them, and you will learn more (who knows if this is true but). So now I do write and scribble all over textbooks.

[mick33]

I do write in textbooks sometimes, but I use separate notebooks more often. When I write in textbooks I like to use pencil and what I write is either answers to questions or short explanations.

[Icaria909]

I always avoided writing in any book until I got to college. I took a class with an amazing French professor from the history department (she specialized in middle eastern studies). She was shocked when she learned that none of her American students wrote notes in the book we were studying-we all made notes in our notebooks. I will never forget how she responded:

"Learning is like going to war and your books are the battleground. They should bare the stain of your struggle."

Now I love writing, writing, bending, and staining my books.

[Iversen]

My dictionaries, grammars and - insofar I have them - textbooks are like my arsenals of weapons, and they are situated inside my military camp (my bookshelves and my computer). I don't want the fighting to take place where I store my weapons.

Instead I see languages as castles or fortified cities which have to be conquered, using materials which I have stored behind the front zone. And all the dirty paper which lies around after the battle will go into the paper bin. If I had dirtied the books as badly as I dirty my loose sheets I would feel that they also belonged there.

[bpasseri]

Just thinking hypothetically about writing in a book gives me a panic attack

[Keys]

I used Colloquial Urdu and Teach Yourself Urdu to learn Urdu, and have to admit I added the meaning of every word in the short texts at the beginning of every chapter so that I had an interlinear word-for-word translation.

Then I scanned only those pages with the short texts, which had been turned into interlinear texts for both textbooks, and re-read them until I knew all the words without needing to look them up anymore. I referred to the grammar only when a certain conjugation or spelling form was confusing. Also I didn't feel the need to make notes on grammar in the grammar section of those textbooks, although I did add some grammar notes in the interlinear line.

After that I could read Harry Potter slowly in Urdu, still having to look up a lot, but with at least a firm (very) basic reading vocabulary.

I think if I would have had to re-read the texts in the textbooks, looking up words every time, it would have taken me a lot longer. So I definitely benefited from scribbling in the books, and I don't really feel bad about it. I could have spared the books by scanning them first I guess

[aokoye]

Have you looked at the price of textbooks lately? They are outrageous, and getting worse daily. Why there are not more people in jail for conspiracy to thieve from captive students is a moral calamity. Students can attempt some partial recovery of their investment by not defacing books, then selling them when their use is no longer required, but even that expedient may be distasteful because the books may have some continuing value to the student beyond the time of the course.

And this is why I'm glad that, in general, most of my university courses use actual books as opposed to textbooks. What I've also found interesting, but ultimately good, is that the buyback scheme at my university allows students to sell their books back even if they've written in them. It's odd because I'm used to selling back books to Powells (I've done so about once a year since I was 10 years old) so I'm used to appropriately high standards in terms of the condition that books have to be in to be sold back.

I would be completely unsurprised if students get less money for selling back books that are written in or otherwise "defaced" for lack of a better word (which is logical honestly) but, also unsurprising is that they sell all of the used books for the same price. That is to say, a written in used book will cost the same as a used book with the same ISBN that hasn't been written in. And that is why I thumb through all of the used books I buy from my university's bookstore.

[DaveBee]

Have you looked at the price of textbooks lately? They are outrageous, and getting worse daily. Why there are not more people in jail for conspiracy to thieve from captive students is a moral calamity. Students can attempt some partial recovery of their investment by not defacing books, then selling them when their use is no longer required, but even that expedient may be distasteful because the books may have some continuing value to the student beyond the time of the course.

And this is why I'm glad that, in general, most of my university courses use actual books as opposed to textbooks. What I've also found interesting, but ultimately good, is that the buyback scheme at my university allows students to sell their books back even if they've written in them. It's odd because I'm used to selling back books to Powells (I've done so about once a year since I was 10 years old) so I'm used to appropriately high standards in terms of the condition that books have to be in to be sold back.

I would be completely unsurprised if students get less money for selling back books that are written in or otherwise "defaced" for lack of a better word (which is logical honestly) but, also unsurprising is that they sell all of the used books for the same price. That is to say, a written in used book will cost the same as a used book with the same ISBN that hasn't been written in. And that is why I thumb through all of the used books I buy from my university's bookstore.

I noticed a 'rent' option on Amazon USA the other day (following a link from this forum). Leasing a book for a term.

Some publishers have been pushing a subscription eBook Library option (Safari online).

[Tillumadoguenirurm]

No, not anymore. When I was in school I wrote in any of the workbooks and the textbooks ( with a pencil of course!), but these days I copy the text and the answers into a notebook instead. Somewhere along the way I learned that books are expensive, so writing in them now would only make me feel like a shithead.