How to Highlight a Paper

Highlighting a document, be it a paper, book or magazine, with a colored highlighter or pen and a notational method can increase memory retention and concept comprehension. Highlighting is typically used to enhance interesting details, similar concepts, vocabulary words, definitions or proofreading errors and mistakes. Here are a few easy ways to highlight a document.

Things You'll Need

• Colored highlighters and pens
• Note paper
• Ruler or small, medium and large index cards

Instructions

1. Prepare mentally or on paper a method of notation that includes a combination of words, symbols, and colors that you can use while highlighting. Choose easily recognizable notational marks such as academic or business proofreading marks, stars, arrows or numbers. These marks, when combined with colored highlighting, should immediately bring your attention to an area of text that holds a key word, concept or phrase.

2. Practice using your highlighters and notational method with a newspaper or magazine article. Only highlight key words, concepts or phrases. Add or remove notations marks until you find the best combination of highlighter or pen colors and symbols that work best with your situation and study, memorization or retention habits.

3. Use a ruler or index card as a guide to highlight with a straight line. To reduce smudging, wipe the edge of the ruler or card with a tissue after each line is drawn.

4. Read your required paper or book section without uncapping your highlighter or pen.

5. Skim and review you paper or book section and highlight key words, concepts or phrases using your new method. A highlighter typically has an angular tip which produces a broad line when drawn horizontally and a narrow line when drawn vertically. Use the narrow tip with small text or cramped text in columns, tables or charts. Use the broad tip with large text and wide columns.

Tips & Warnings

• Increased memory retention can result from combining different methods of highlighting and notation. Describe your feelings about the text or a main concept by writing a few key words or phrases in the margins of your page. Indicate a series or list of supporting information in a paragraph or section by writing consecutive numbers (1,2,3...) or lower case letters (a,b,c...) at the beginning of each word or phrase.

• Highlighting similar key words, concepts and phrases with the same color highlighter or pen can make retention of information easier when studying. For example, yellow for one set of similar concepts and green for another. If highlighting to mark mistakes or corrections on a paper, different color notations also work well to show small versus large errors. For example, yellow for small errors or corrections and red for large ones.

• Except for highlighting practice, always use a pen when highlighting newspaper text or text on thin paper. Some highlighter brands use ink that is too wet and can "bleed through" to the other side of the paper. Also, newspapers and some inkjet pages are printed with ink that rubs off not only onto hands, but also on to the tips or nubs of highlighters.

• Never leave a highlighter uncapped for a lengthy period of time or the tip dries out rapidly.