How to Decide What to Highlight While Reading Textbooks?

Authors of academic books and articles always seem to have so much to say. How do you figure out what really counts?

Steps:

1. Look briefly over the entire book or article to get a feel for its structure and how its argument or arguments will proceed.

2. Pay particular attention to introductory and concluding paragraphs. These often contain summaries of important points.

3. Look for certain words and phrases that can tip you off that something important is coming up, such as "In sum," "The point is," "Most importantly," and so on.

4. Consider reading the conclusion first. It's like doing a maze backwards: If you know where you're trying to end up, you can find and understand the path better.

5. Look back over the book or article the next day, reading only the highlighted material. Do so again in about a week. This will help the material stick better in your mind.

6. Remember that this is a skill: Be patient with yourself if you're having difficulty with it. Practice makes perfect.

Tips:

If, as you go along, you find that half the text is fluorescent, you're probably highlighting too much. Be more discriminating.

Instead of using a highlighting pen, try marking in the margins with a pen or pencil. This will save time.

Tips from eHow Users:

Signal a change in sub-topic while highlighting by Alicia
It helps to break down the info you're highlighting into subcategories by circling the word, then highlighting the information pertaining to it. For a history text you can circle the famous person or the date, then highlight the pertaining information.

Let somebody else do the work by Jan
Highlighting the huge volumes of pages in the many texts students are required to sift through these days takes a whole lot of time, effort and skill. Time is scarce, so use it wisely. Instead of buying new books, borrow or buy used ones - preferably those which have plenty of highlighting in them already.

1. You save money.

Used books are much less expensive than buying new, especially if they're a little beaten up and they've been written in. When you're ready to turn around and sell them, you're much more likely to make most or all of your money back than if you had bought new. Buy used, save money, eat something!

2. You save time.
One or more other students have already located most of what is important to remember and have either highlighted or underlined it. They may also have jotted down useful notes and examples. That cuts down on the reading and highlighting work you need to do. If you're a really slow reader the time you save can be considerable. Now you can spend more of your valuable time studying only what is most important.

3. Quality Control

Not everybody is skilled at picking out the important information and weeding out the fluff. If you have the opportunity to choose from two or more used books, see which one has been highlighted best. How many chapters were highlighted? Was it done neatly? Examine a chapter or two to see if what is highlighted is what you would have marked. If you know the previous owner got an A in the course, you should be in good shape.

When comparing used books, spending a little more on the one which has been highlighted more thoroughly and with better quality will be worth it in the long run.
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