/edu/ - Education

Yes, it is a waste of time (and book). Instead of highlighting/underlying, you should take notes. That way you won't have to skim plus it involves more thinking than just moving your pen across the text. But the best way to get better at recalling things is to practice recalling them. After you have finished a section/chapter/etc., close the book, and try to write down everything that you have found important in it. This is hard, but by far the most effective way to learn.

>>5738

Yeah, I think it is pretty intuitive tbh. Like, in language learning it has been observed that when you practice some specific skill, you usually only bolster the skill. So vocabulary cards can help with recognizing words, but may not help with actually recalling them for sentence construction. That benefits much more from directly practicing sentence construction. What is highlighting practicing? In reality it seems pretty lazy, the way most people use it. Taking notes or trying to form concept maps involves a creative process of thinking through what you read and trying to manipulate the concepts you drew from it. It’s clearly much more active. I’d say even just pacing and thinking over what you read probably helps retention more than just highlighting, but the more involved act of writing, reading and editing your own thoughts seems like it would be one of the most beneficial methods of retention.