

A Weapon for Readers (2014) - nkurz
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/dec/03/weapon-for-readers

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Flenser
This is one of the things I think medium.com does briliantly. Their side
comments with highlighted context are a brilliant innovation.

I've started using the Point[1] extension for Chrome to highlight content on
pages and comment on it. I mostly use it privately for pages that I would have
otherwise have just bookmarked and put a comment in the bookmark name[2]. but
it's also been useful for discussing web pages with my family that would
otherwise have been done via facebook or email.

[1] [http://www.getpoint.co/](http://www.getpoint.co/)

[2] I'm a prolific bookmarker. I have over 15,907 bookmarks in 1,385 folders,
(up ~5000 / ~500 from this time last year).

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j2kun
Mathematicians have been using this weapon for centuries. You cannot
effectively read a mathematical text without having a pencil handy.

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muon
How to mark a book by Mortimer J. Adler explains the process in detail.
[http://chuma.cas.usf.edu/~pinsky/mark_a_book.htm](http://chuma.cas.usf.edu/~pinsky/mark_a_book.htm)

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sanderjd
It sounds pretty pretentious (and to some extent, it definitely is), but I've
_really_ enjoyed reading and re-reading some books with Vladimir Nabokov's
lecture notes[0] guiding my own.

I'd love to get my hands on that copy of "The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe"
with David Foster Wallace's annotations shown in the header image! Great book,
great author.

[0]: [http://www.amazon.com/Lectures-Literature-Vladimir-
Nabokov/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Lectures-Literature-Vladimir-
Nabokov/dp/0156027755)

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teddyh
For a way to use this to collaboratively review a document, see Co-ment:
[http://www.co-ment.org/](http://www.co-ment.org/)

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marcusgarvey
Thanks so much for sharing this. Any thoughts on the role of Rap Genius as the
online version of this? Truth told, I'm so repulsed by the brand that I
haven't checked it out to see if anyone's using RG to annotate the news.
Applying this kind of critical mark-up to the "news" is what interests me
most.

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randomnumber53
"Better to read a poor book with alert resistance, than devour a good one in
mindless adoration."

I have felt similarly. The mediocre, when analyzed deeply, can become more
interesting than the interesting.

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mturmon
Tim Parks has been writing some really excellent, unpretentious, and deep
pieces on the act of reading for the NYR blog. I had missed this one, thanks
for submitting it.

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thisandthat
so... read physical books and don't be afraid to write on it? does that sum up
what the author is trying to say?

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randomnumber53
That summarizes the author's conclusion, not what he is trying to say.

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j_m_b
|We have too much respect for the printed word, too little |awareness of the
power words hold over us.

|Often I will find comments below an article (on occasion, alas, below my own
articles) that are more intelligent, even better informed, than the article
itself.

If an article's comment section is closed, I am much more suspect of the
article. If the article has closed comments and doesn't have a corresponding
reddit, hacker news, slashdot, etc post, I won't read past the headline.
Comments are good at pointing out bias, contradictions and fallacies within an
article and have broken the information power monopoly once enjoyed by the
media elites.

~~~
j2kun
Comments are also very good at inventing their own fallacies and
contradictions. If every comment section was as well thought-out as HN (which
still has issues), I would be surprised by closed comments. But that's not how
the internet is.

~~~
j_m_b
|Comments are also very good at inventing their own fallacies and
contradictions.

It doesn't matter how well thought out the comments are. That they exist
provides counterpoint and devalues the original article. This is crucial
because readers tend to overvalue written word "as gospel".

|If every comment section was as well thought-out as HN (which still has
issues), I would be surprised by closed comments.

You are dismissing other opinions before they have even been written by
assuming that quality comments only come from particular sources. This is very
akin to an argument from authority fallacy. Even if a site was known to have
"bad" comments, it doesn't mean ALL articles on that site will have bad
comments. Links to articles are posted in a wide variety of other places
attracting different readers and commenters.

~~~
j2kun
I'm not dismissing opinions, just saying I understand that one could
reasonably want to close a comment section for these reasons. There is more
than one stance on the issue. I think the onus is on the _reader,_ not the
author, to be critical and form counterarguments. A noncritical reader will
ignore good comments or the fallacies in bad comments just as easily as they
will in the article itself. Adding comment noise is a very indirect method of
encouraging critical thinking in readers.

