vestigation into a particular subject, a commonplace book can help you keep track of important quotes, respond to the text, make connections, and develop your own ideas.
In The Well-Educated Mind: A Guide to the Classical Education You Never Had, Susan Wise Bauer explains the process of using a commonplace book while reading:
“The journal used for self-education should model itself after this extended type of commonplace book. It is neither an unadorned collection of facts, nor an entirely inward account of what’s going on in your heart and soul. Rather, the journal is the place where the reader takes external information and records it (through the use of quotes, as in the commonplace book); appropriates it through a summary, written in the reader’s own words; and then evaluates it through reflection and personal thought. As you read, you should follow this three-part process: jot own specific phrases, sentences, an paragraphs as you come across them; when you’ve finished your reading, go back and write a brief summary of what you’ve learned; an then write your own reflections, questions, and thoughts.”
Using a commonplace book in this way will add a new dimension of depth to your reading. Instead of being a static, one-sided activity, reading will become a dynamic experience.
In the article “Extraordinary Commonplaces,” Robert Darnton explains how keeping such a commonplace book changed the nature of reading for early autodidacts (and how it can change the way you read today):
“Time was when readers kept commonplace books. Whenever they came across a pithy passage, they copied it into a notebook under an appropriate heading, adding observations made in the course of daily life. . . It involved a special way of taking in the printed word. . .They broke texts into fragments and assembled them into new patterns by transcribing them in different sections of their notebooks. Then they reread the copies and rearranged the patterns while adding more excerpts. Reading and writing were therefore inseparable activities. They belonged to a continuous effort to make sense of things, for the world was full of signs: you could read your way through it; and by keeping an account of your readings, you made a book of your own, one stamped with your personality.” (The New York Review of Books, 2000)
Keeping a commonplace book will probably prevent you from passively skimming over the words in a book. You may not be able to read while lying down; but your understanding of the material is likely to increase by leaps and bounds.
How to Start a Commonplace Book
Creating a commonplace book is actually very simple. Remembering to take it off the shelf and add to your entries is the hard part.
Step 1: Choose Your Medium
Like journals, commonplace books vary. You can choose a blank, hard-bound book, a cheap spiral notebook, or a pricy moleskin book. Some people prefer to use a three-ring binder for their commonplace book so that pages can easily be added or removed.
Alternatively, you may prefer to create a digital commonplace book. Journaling software or even a word processing program will work. I keep my commonplace book (pictured here) on Microsoft’s OneNote, where I can create a new tab for each section.
If you don’t mind making your private thoughts public, you may choose to use a blog as your commonplace book. You can select your own domain and use a blogging platform such as WordPress. Or, you can make use Blogger to create a simple, no-cost blog.
Step 2: Choose Your Content
Next, you’ll need to decide how to use your commonplace book.
As you’ve seen, commonplace books can be an excellent way to keep track of your reading. If you choose to use your book as a kind of reading log, you may want to include the following components:
- Lists of books to read
- Quotes from books you’re reading
- Book summaries in your own words
- Your reactions / thoughts about books you’ve finished
Remember that this is your book – you can choose to include anything that you want to remember or come back to. Here are some other things you may want to store in 