Text Marking And Highlighting¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 1 claim (1 for) · 3 studies (2 quant-synthesis, 1 theoretical), q2–q4 · 2 of 3 report an effect size

Description¶

Text marking asks learners to selectively highlight, underline, circle, or annotate passages during reading, isolating what they judge to be most important. It is one of the most widely used study strategies, typically followed by re-reading the marked portions. It can be learner-generated (the reader decides what to mark) or provided (instructor or system pre-marks the text).

Design Implications¶

Highlighting is a generative activity in principle — deciding what to mark forces attention and judgment — but in practice it often functions as passive selection that substitutes for deeper processing [~M]. Learners frequently over-highlight, mark surface features rather than main ideas, and treat the highlighted text as a substitute for study rather than a prompt for it Karpicke & Blunt's comparison of study activities [+S]. Effectiveness improves when marking is constrained (limited number of marks), taught explicitly, and paired with a second activity such as summarizing or self-testing.

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Text of appropriate difficulty — marking works best when learners can identify importance, which requires sufficient prior knowledge
• Explicit instruction in selection criteria (main ideas vs. supporting detail), since learners do not intuitively mark well
• A follow-up use for the marks: review, summarization, or self-testing — highlighting alone, with re-reading as the only follow-up, produces weak outcomes

Constraints¶

• Highlighting plus re-reading is among the lowest-utility study techniques in a comprehensive review of learning strategies Dunlosky et al. rated highlighting "low utility." [-S] — it supports selection of material but not organization or integration
• Over-marking eliminates the selection benefit: when most of the text is highlighted, nothing is prioritized and attention is not guided [-M]
• Pre-highlighted text can induce passive processing; learners given ready-made marks may skip the judgment step entirely [~M]
• Learners with low prior knowledge mark the wrong things, so the strategy can misdirect later review toward surface features [-M]
• On screen, highlighting can encourage skimming and collection of marks rather than comprehension [~W]

Implementation Variability¶

• Learner-generated marking — the reader selects; builds evaluation skill but depends on prior knowledge
• Instructor-provided marking — pre-marked or system-highlighted text guides attention to critical content; useful for novices but removes the generative step
• Constrained marking — e.g., "highlight no more than 10%" or "one sentence per paragraph," which forces prioritization
• Marking plus transformation — highlights become the skeleton for a summary, outline, or question set, converting selection into generative processing
• Structured marking codes — different marks for claims, evidence, and questions (annotation protocols such as those used in AP and IB reading instruction)

Target Learners¶

• Readers with moderate prior knowledge, who can judge importance but still need to direct attention [~M]
• Novices benefit more from provided highlighting than from generating their own marks, since their selection judgments are unreliable [-M]
• Less effective for learners who already use elaborative strategies; for them it can displace more productive study Dunlosky et al. rated highlighting "low utility." [-S]

Target Learning Goals¶

• Selecting and prioritizing key information in expository text
• Preparation for later review — marked text functions as a reduced, attention-guided version of the original
• Not well suited to integration, inference, or transfer goals without a paired generative activity

Instructions¶

1. Set a selection criterion and a constraint before reading (e.g., "mark the sentence that states each main idea; no more than one per paragraph").
2. Have learners read and mark, using a small set of codes if multiple mark types are used (see Annotating).
3. Require a transformation step: learners turn their marks into a summary, outline, or question set rather than re-reading the highlights.
4. Follow with retrieval practice — learners close the text and reconstruct the main ideas, using marks only to check (see Practice).
5. Provide feedback on selection quality, comparing learner marks against expert-identified key ideas (see Advance Organizers for a provided-structure alternative).

Related Strategies¶

• "Headings and Highlight" strategy — the system-provided variant, where text structure and pre-marked emphasis guide attention
• Annotating — the broader element; marking is its most minimal form
• Advance Organizers — an alternative way to direct attention, provided before reading rather than generated during it

Examples¶

• Annotation protocols in AP/IB English courses — students mark claims, evidence, and rhetorical moves with distinct symbols, then write from their annotations rather than re-reading.
• Perusall (https://www.perusall.com) — social annotation platform where learners highlight and comment on shared readings; the visible marks of peers model selection judgments.
• Kindle and Hypothesis (https://web.hypothes.is) — digital highlighting with exportable notes; the export step enables the transformation activity that raw highlighting lacks.

Key Sources¶

• Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving students' learning with effective learning techniques: Promising directions from cognitive and educational psychology. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4–58. doi:10.1177/1529100612453266
• Karpicke, J. D., & Blunt, J. R. (2011). Retrieval practice produces more learning than elaborative studying with concept mapping. Science, 331(6018), 772–775. doi:10.1126/science.1199327
• Clark, R. C., & Mayer, R. E. (2016). E-Learning and the Science of Instruction (4th ed.). Wiley. doi:10.1002/9781119239086
• Ponce, H. R., Mayer, R. E., & Méndez, E. E. (2014). Effects of providing and requesting highlighting on learning from text. (Eye-movement and performance evidence that learner-generated highlighting can aid selection when properly prompted.)

Notes¶

• The distinctiveness of a mark matters: salient, isolated highlights capture attention more than uniform ones (see Von Restorff Effect and Text Marking).
• Highlighting imposes minimal load, which is both its appeal and its weakness — see Cognitive Load Theory for why low-load strategies rarely produce durable learning without a generative component.