When it is exam time, one of the essential things to have with your pencils, pens and rough notes are, a bunch of highlighters, before you start off your lengthy, tedious study drills. It is hard to deny that your books do not have at least few smudges of pen marks, highlights with different colours and underlines that flash your attention to them, every time you open the page.

Highlighting, underlining or using symbols are an effective way to mark important, key and useful information out of the obvious one, in a way that will be easy to refer when you want to.

How to effectively highlight?

Generally, highlighting is most beneficial during the quick revision of the pages, and when your eyes are just skimming through the information, you don’t want to concentrate on. These highlighted sections can be either numeral which needs attention, or words you want to look up the meanings of or need to focus on for a longer time.

Don’t rush: Students or readers tend to highlight words or sentences as they read on, without much thought as they might feel the necessity to, with the first read. This is one of the most widely made mistakes and must be avoided. It is essential to read the paragraph or sentence before uncapping the highlighter and thoughtlessly scribbling on.

Know the purpose: It is crucial that you know what you’re highlighting the information for. It can be for referrals, for memorising or for identification purposes. Once it is clear, highlight the information according to your purpose. This avoids confusion and serves the purpose.

Use different coloured highlighters: Using different colours for highlighting can make your book look attractive and draws your eyes to the page. Colours such as yellow, blue and green make the text seem brighter and hence would be legible, while darker colours might overpower your eyes and make the text difficult for reading.

Different ways of highlighting:

•    Highlighting with the sketches, highlighters: Usually, these are used for highlighting the text in a way that grabs the attention of the reader. It is important to be careful when using these highlighters as there is no way to go back and redo your work. It is also essential to know what you highlight these for.

•    Underlining: It can be done with pen or pencil, to just indicate the keywords or sentences without grabbing much attention or distorting the paper. Using a pencil is suggested as you can always erase it and undo the mistakes. Underlining is easy and does not smudge the text.

•    Using symbols: Various symbols like ‘brackets,’ ‘star marks,’ ‘a tick,’ or ‘a wrong sign’ can be marked indicating the little note that is self-explained with the symbol used, instead of writing a line or two for the sentence. For example, ‘a wrong sign’ indicates that particular sentence or text isn’t required or ‘a star mark’ sign might imply that this sentence or word is important and hence requires more of your attention.

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