"Wait a minute. I want to see that in print. Chapter and verse."
Quickly fumbling through his clean but unmarked scriptures, Richard G. Wilkins frantically looked for the verse he had just quoted to his nonmember friend. Almost an entire lunch period later, Wilkins triumphantly showed him Amos 3:7: "Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets." Satisfied, his friend then agreed to accept a copy of the Book of Mormon.
In his 1975 Ensign article titled "But It Was in Amos Last Time I Looked!" Wilkins cites this blunder as his catalyst to becoming a "confirmed scripture marker."
"Maybe you haven't confronted your scriptural 'lunchroom' yet," Wilkins wrote. "But someday you might feel like Napoleon at Waterloo when your own Wellington says, 'Show me. Chapter and verse.' When that happens, marked and cross-referenced books are invaluable."
Whether you are reading to be a prepared missionary or organized teacher, or simply for spiritual growth, it is important to find your purpose for marking and develop a system tailored to your needs.
"Why you mark your scriptures will determine how you mark your scriptures," said Grant Anderson, director of the Salt Lake University Institute of Religion. "If it doesn't serve you, why do it? You have to ask yourself, 'Does it help me?'"
The thought of establishing your own scripture marking method may seem daunting, but here are a few tips developed from Wilkins' article and Anderson's suggestions to get you started.
1. Keep it simple. "The only thing less helpful in finding scriptures than an unmarked book is a book with so many complicated, varying marks that it takes a cryptographer to read it," Wilkins wrote.
2. Get your tools. For Anderson, this includes a dictionary and commentaries to help him more fully understand what he reads, a red pencil and Wite-Out, which he uses to alter his scrawls as his impressions change and expand. You may want a ruler for underlining, colored pencils for marking and pens for annotating. Wilkins cautions, however, to use pens that will not bleed through the pages
3. Develop a classification process. While your actual marking could include underlining, circling key words, bracketing, boxing, circling verses or shading, it is important to be able to differentiate between the verses you mark. In order to do so, you could rely on annotation, selecting different colors to coordinate with different concepts and principles, or tabs on the pages.
4. Cross reference. While there are many techniques, Wilkins suggests scripture chaining. Select one scripture for each gospel topic as a reference scripture. Next to the reference scripture, list all the verses you would like to include in your chain. Then, write the reference scripture next to each scripture in your chain. This will lead you to find the complete list of related scriptures.
5. Practice your system. Anderson recommends buying a paperback set of scriptures to test your system. This will allow you to develop a method that can remain consistent.
6. Begin. This is the most important part, but often the hardest. "Your system of marking and cross referencing may change, but if you never start, you'll never perfect a system that works for you," Wilkins wrote.
No matter when you start, it is important to remember that scripture marking is a process with no definite end point.
"It's a workbook," Anderson said, "not a finished product."