Documents
Highlights, notes and your draft
A highlight marks words you want to find again. A note adds a question, summary or thought. A draft turns what you have learned into writing for someone else. These have different jobs. Keeping source words separate from your own ideas helps you use each one clearly.
Interactive demo
See it for yourself
Follow one passage from reading to writing. The garden notice is made up for this example. Each view shows a different way to work with the same source.
Your preview
Source: sample garden notice
The garden gate usually opens at nine each morning. On Sundays, it opens at ten.
1. Highlight: select source words
On Sundays, it opens at ten.
These are the notice's exact words. Marking them makes the Sunday exception easy to find. It does not yet explain your plans.
2. Note: add your thinking
My summary: Sunday opening is one hour later.
My question: How long will the walk to the garden take?
Source: sample garden notice
The summary restates a source fact. The question is your response; the notice does not answer it.
3. Draft: write for a reader
I plan to reach the garden gate at ten on Sunday. The sample garden notice says, “On Sundays, it opens at ten.”
Your contribution: a plan for the visit. Source evidence: the quoted opening time. The draft connects the two and names the source.
How it works
Selection, thought and explanation
Highlighting answers a small question: which words deserve another look? A reading note goes further. It can restate an idea, raise a question or connect two passages. A note attached to a passage is often called an annotation.
A draft has an audience and a purpose. You choose which notes belong, put ideas in order and explain the links between them. A collection of highlights is useful raw material, but it does not make those choices for you.
Keep track of whose words you are using
A quotation keeps the source's exact words. Use quotation marks or a clearly marked quote block. A paraphrase expresses a source idea in your own wording. A summary gives its main points in a shorter form. All three need credit to the source.
Your response is a separate contribution. It might be a question, a reason to disagree or a plan based on what you read. Label it while taking notes. That makes it easier to tell source material from your thinking later.
Keep enough source details to return to the original. A link and a page number can help. Formal assignments may also need an author, title and date. Check the surrounding passage before quoting; a nearby sentence may add an exception.
Where it came from
On paper, these jobs are easy to picture: underline a sentence, write in the margin, then start a draft. Digital annotation carries that connection between a passage and a reader's response onto a screen.
The W3C Web Annotation model describes a way to connect a comment with its target. That target can be a whole resource or one part of it. The useful idea is simple: keep what you said linked to what you were reading.
Who it helps — honestly
These distinctions help anyone reading toward a task: an essay, a lesson, a report or a decision. A short note can record why you saved something. Clear source labels help another reader follow your reasoning.
Highlighting alone is not a reliable measure of learning. A 2013 review by Dunlosky and colleagues rated highlighting and underlining as having low utility for learning. The authors noted that results depend partly on how well learners choose what to mark.
Try pausing after a short section. Write its main idea without looking, then check it against the source. Add one question you still have. This turns the passage into something to think about, beyond a patch of color.
You can also review a draft by listening to it. Choose a note format you can read and revisit. The important part is knowing what the source says and what you want to say about it.
Questions people ask
What is the difference between highlighting and taking notes?
Highlighting selects existing words. Taking notes lets you record a summary, question or response. You can combine them by marking a passage and adding a note about why it matters.
Does a paraphrase still need a source?
Yes. A paraphrase uses your own wording, but the idea still comes from the source. Credit that source and check that you kept its meaning. Changing a few words is not enough to make a passage your own.
Does highlighting mean I have learned the material?
No. A marked passage shows what you selected, not what you understand or remember. Try explaining the idea without looking, then check your explanation against the source.