For class this semester, I bought a copy of the book so that I could write in it. I only started writing in books a few years ago, and have been enjoying the practice of it. It is nice to be able to look back on these annotations and see how my perspective has changed on the same words. It reminds me of keeping a journal and looking back on past entries to see how much I have changed. I annotate in a few different ways. I underline the passages/sentences I find most important, either to the ‘plot’ (not that there is really one in this book), or by what strikes a particular chord inside of me whether because of the topic or how the sentence was written. I also use square brackets for a few different reasons. Either to highlight longer paragraphs that would be unsatisfying to underline completely, to emphasize something within an already underlined part, or something I think is important but not important enough to be underlined. Many uses for the same thing. I also used post-it notes for chapters I found particularly relevant and wanted to discuss. In the margins, I often wrote down notes or thoughts as they came. Sometimes at the end of striking chapters, I would write more where there was space after the chapter ended. 

This process enhanced my reading and interpretations of Moby Dick by forcing me to slow down and reread. Had I not been writing and underlining in this book, I probably would have been doing a lot more skimming. It also helped for bringing ideas to class because I could see what I had underlined or comments I had written, which was helpful because I often forgot what parts stuck out most to me. I also think this enhanced my reading by making me think critically about what I was reading, because I didn’t want to just write nonsensical comments in the margins (although that too happened sometimes).