The evolution of the ebook is a heated discussion. While there is the convenience of traveling with an e-reader like the IPad or a Galaxy tablet, there is a visceral loss of paper and ink. Scribbling in the margins does not work on an e-reader but hauling a bunch of books around in a backpack or a messenger bag is a series of frustrations too.
Even more, reading an ebook is a subtly different set of mental processes than a print book, especially non-fiction. In a print book, I may tag a sentence with a pencil in the margin that stands out for retrieval or further review. Often I read a sentence of which I am unsure and I let it remain unmarked although I tag the page number or the page itself in my memory, waiting to see if the next pages prove or disprove the relevancy. This is the process of reading a book and its arguments closely. If the sentence proves relevant, I will flip back a page or two because I am haphazardly counting pages as I continue to follow the argument of the sentence or the paragraph.
I find that in an ebook, the pages look altogether much more similar – the page with the large paragraph followed by the two small paragraphs blends away. Further, I am less conscious of swiping pages compared to turning pages. I lose track. Short arguments work well on an ebook but long, involved arguments are easier to comprehend on printed pages. These minor differences frustrate my long-time developing methodology for studying. The fixes that others have suggested are time-consuming and loss of time defeats the purpose.
The paper-based thesaurus is superb at presenting a lot of information quickly and taking the reading to further information just as speedily. Most online thesauri stink and fail either criterion, a lot of information quickly or access to expanded but related information just as rapidly. I say “most” because I was recently sent to a website that is a holy grail of computing promises; namely, transforming a process done with paper and ink into a better process in digital format. The ebook format excels.
Check out graphwords.com. Plug in a few common words and watch the maps blossom across the screen. Please, though, don’t blame me for all the time you spend with this word engine.
Glenn Jacob 