If we took the notes of a university student, we would most likely find books, articles and other documents underlined with all kinds of fluorescent colors: yellow, green, orange, pink, blue… The range of colors that we can find in stores is wide, colors that are in wide demand in the educational world.
Underlining is one of the most used techniques among the student population, especially in high school, high school and university. The premise behind this is that underlining key ideas highlights them and therefore makes it easier to both review and memorize those ideas.
But really, Does underlining help you study better? Below we will see whether or not this study strategy really serves to better establish the syllabus.
Is underlining an effective measure to study better?
It doesn’t fail. If we go to the nearest library and take a walk through it we will see all kinds of students with their notes on the table, books and other documents that, in addition to having the occasional annotation, will also have a wide range of colors. There are flirtatious students who do it in pastel colors, others prefer the brightest fluorescent classics and some prefer to go simple and underline with a pencil or pen. Be that as it may, students, almost instinctively, need to underline their notes.
Underlining is one of the most used techniques among students of all educational levels, especially in secondary school (ESO), pre-university (baccalaureate) and university. They don’t do it for the sake of it, naturally: the objective is to facilitate learning and memorization of the content, highlighting the key ideas and making it easier to refer to them during the review without having to read the entire page from top to bottom.
Due to its popularity, there are many investigations in educational sciences that have tried to find out if underlining really helps to study better. This strategy has been studied both in a laboratory context, controlling all possible variables, and in real situations in the classroom, that is, field work. Both types of research have coincided in comparing underlining with other strategies also used by the student population and reading without underlining.
Scientific investigation
Of the many investigations that have focused on studying the effectiveness of underlining as a study technique, we have a classic one, carried out in 1974 by Robert L. Fowler and Anne S. Barker. In summary, His study involved giving a 10-page text to his students, who were divided into three groups, each with one of the following 3 conditions:
The students read the text and did what the researchers told them. Those in condition 1 simply read, without underlining. Those in 2 had to read the text, underlining it on their own, and as expected, each one underlined what they considered relevant, which could vary from person to person. Those in 3 received a text that already had the key ideas underlined.
The next session of the experiment was carried out after a week and consisted of performing the test in which They were asked the contents that were explained in the 10-page document Before the exam, the students had the opportunity to review for about 10 minutes using the same document they used the previous time, that is, those in grade 1 received the same document without underlining, those in grade 2 received the one that they had colored themselves, and those in grade 3 received the document with the ideas underlined.
When comparing the results of the test answered by the students of the three conditions, the researchers did not find statistically significant differences between these conditions. As surprising as it may seem, other research along the same lines as this one or that took inspiration from it had similar results, implying at first glance that underlining is useless.
Is it really useless?
However, assuming at first glance that underlining has no benefit for the study is a hasty and shallow interpretation. Although somewhat subtle, actively underlining or receiving an already underlined document was associated with better performance compared to just reading the text, suggesting that underlining really does help
When we see an underlined word of a different color on a black and white page, it is inevitable to notice it. That word stands out above the others because it does not have the same visual, that is, perceptual, characteristics as the rest of the text that is not colored. This word will have caught our attention and even if we have not made the effort, we will remember it more easily than the rest of the text.
This is the Von Restorff or isolation effect, and occurs when information stands out semantically or sensorially. By standing out, it is more likely to be remembered compared to the rest of the information that was more homogeneous in these two aspects. For example, reading the following two lists of words and waiting 5 minutes, which words are we most likely not to forget?
Taking these two examples we can see that the isolation effect will occur, making us remember the word “orangutan” from list 1, which stands out semantically, and the word “motorcycle”, which stands out perceptually. The first does so because unlike the rest of the list, it is not a fruit, but an animal, and the second stands out because it is in bold and underlined.
Once this is understood, what would happen if list 2 were presented in the following way? If it were the first time they taught it to us, what words do we think would be the most likely to be remembered?:
Here all the words are underlined and in bold, and they all refer to means of transportation. None of them stands out because they all have the same characteristics In principle, all of them will involve the same cognitive effort when trying to memorize and remember them, since none of them on their own have any particularly striking aspect.
This is what happens when some notes are underlined. When specific words in the text are underlined, it is more likely that, when reviewing, we will quickly notice them because they attract attention because they are visually different from the rest of the page. Because they have caught our attention, we remember them better. However, If the entire page or almost the entire page is underlined, what is going to attract the most attention in visual terms is going to be white, which could well be the margins or a single word that we have not colored. This would not produce the Von Restorff effect and, therefore, underlining would not have been of much use to us.
If you underline well, that is, only what are ideas and keywords, the study process is greatly speeded up. When reviewing, the key ideas will be used and a student strategy that has been shown to be one of the most effective can be put into practice: evocation. By forcing themselves to remember the contents, students put into practice something that they will have to do on the day of the exam, which is nothing more than explaining on the sheet of paper what they are asked about.
If they have the key ideas indicated in the book, when they put the evocation into practice, if they do not remember the contents they will simply have to go to the page of what they do not remember, read what is underlined and try to evoke it again, instead of having to read the entire page and waste time. Having underlined the key ideas appropriately and tried to remember them out loud means that underlining does help you study better since it will facilitate its memorization and subsequent recall.
How to make underlining useful?
Given the above, it is clear that underlining, although it is not a technique as powerful as evocation, if done well can be helpful in our study. For underlining to be useful to us, it must be done well, that is, underlining the key ideas and avoiding making the most classic mistake that all students have made more than once: painting the entire page with the highlighter. It is not that the more we underline, the more we will learn, but rather that the fewer things will catch our attention and the more difficult it will be for us to find the key ideas.
Next Let’s see some tips to underline well making this strategy really useful in our studio and without overusing the markers.
1. Do a first reading
The first thing many students do as soon as they open the book is arm themselves with their highlighter, start reading the syllabus and underlining as they go. This is the most widespread error among the student population, and the one that turns the action of underlining into a total waste of time.
In order to underline the key ideas, you must first know what they are, and we cannot know this on the first reading. Even if we go paragraph by paragraph, it is of no use to us if we do not have a global idea of what the topic is about. Since we do not know and we have not read all the contents, our filter of things to take into account is very broad, letting through any idea that we do not know, which is practically all of them.
It is therefore very important to do a first reading without underlining. We must take our time and read the entire topic deeply, without painting the pages. As we read, we will connect some ideas with others, establishing which ones are more important and which ones are simpler or which we already knew before.
2. Do active reading
Although some say that it is enough for them to do a first reading as a contact, yes, it is important to do a second reading In this one the topic will be a little more familiar to us, since we will remember something from the first reading. Doing active reading while having some ideas internalized can allow us to better establish which ideas are important, in addition to relating them more easily to each other.
It is during this second reading that it is especially advisable to pay attention to details that, perhaps, during the first one we have skipped or have not paid much attention to because they are more visual than written. Now is a good time to try to understand the images, graphs, maps, figures or any non-written element that gives meaning to the text.
3. Identify relevant information
Once the first two readings have been done It is time to identify the information that is essential for us to learn for the exam, that which is relevant and that we are going to underline This is really the most reflective moment of the review, since we are making an active cognitive effort to discern what is important from the chaff.
4. Underline
Now it’s time to color the book. We highlight the most important information and concepts after having identified them, such as titles, concepts, definitions, dates and other content of the topic. It is very important not to underline more than 3 words in a row nor more than 5 in the same paragraph, since we run the risk of ruining the Von Restorff effect as we mentioned before.
What we can do is combine underlining formats For example, we can underline the name of an idea (e.g., Spanish Romanticism) and circle its entire definition with a highlight, mark it with a square bracket, or indicate it with an arrow. As long as almost the entire page is not colored and the key ideas stand out visually, we will be doing a good underlining.
Finally, we have to comment on the issue of colors. It is a very good idea to use several different colors, especially more than 4 since this way we can identify using our own color code different types of key content (e.g., yellow = key idea, blue = author, green = important date, pink = category…) It is preferable to use pastel colors rather than fluorescent ones, especially if we are going to spend many hours studying since these second colors are less comfortable for our eyes.
Summary
Although scientific evidence has pointed out that there are no statistically significant differences between underlining and just reading a text, it should be said that there are certain nuances in this. Underlining without knowing what you are underlining is not the same as doing it after having read, identified, selected and pointed out the key ideas. When reviewing, if only the key ideas have been marked, the eye will go to what is important, paying more attention to it and learning it more easily.
As long as it is done properly, underlining is a useful technique. Combined with evocation, that is, trying to remember what we have learned, visually pointing out what is important helps us study better since if we are not clear about something, it will be enough to look for it in the book, reread the important content and try to see it again. if it has remained in our memory.
