Highlighting my textbooks

[drakkan2001]

Hey all,

After four years of medical school, I've developed an OCD for highlighting all my textbooks, study guides, and notes. During college I highlighted very little since we were tested mostly on "big picture" things. Now, I can't help myself when I'm reading an article because every sentence seems so important. For instance, I'm studying for Step 2 and I'm highlighting every line and chart in first aid and my book is completely yellow from highlighting. Will I ever be cured of this madness!!!

P.S. Please share your highlighting stories if you have any.🙂

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[alphaholic06]

Hey all,

After four years of medical school, I've developed an OCD for highlighting all my textbooks, study guides, and notes. During college I highlighted very little since we were tested mostly on "big picture" things. Now, I can't help myself when I'm reading an article because every sentence seems so important. For instance, I'm studying for Step 2 and I'm highlighting every line and chart in first aid and my book is completely yellow from highlighting. Will I ever be cured of this madness!!!

P.S. Please share your highlighting stories if you have any.🙂

I've picked up this habit too.

 

[ninjapenguin]

I did for the first week of medical school. Then I realized how pointless it was and stupid it looked.

 

[TMP-SMX]

I only highlight notes. It's kind of an awareness thing. I know I'm paying attention during a lecture if I highlight the important things and make notes in the margins as a summary. Then if I have time the day or two before the test I write out concise summaries of all the testable and likely material that I don't quite have down yet. Starting this year I've also been reading the textbooks and that seems to help memorize everything seeing it written differently for lectures where the notes suck.

 

[drsadness88]

Oh my god, that's exactly what I do except I use all the colors of the rainbow. I also highlight my own handwriting in my notebook; it's crazy.
Relax it's part of being in med school.

 

[xanthomondo]

Hey all,

After four years of medical school, I've developed an OCD for highlighting all my textbooks, study guides, and notes. During college I highlighted very little since we were tested mostly on "big picture" things. Now, I can't help myself when I'm reading an article because every sentence seems so important. For instance, I'm studying for Step 2 and I'm highlighting every line and chart in first aid and my book is completely yellow from highlighting. Will I ever be cured of this madness!!!

P.S. Please share your highlighting stories if you have any.🙂

I laugh when I see this. When you start highlighting up and down instead of left to right you know you're going overboard.

 

[ZagDoc]

Yellow is key points. Orange is for sure exam Q's. Green is secondary points, or, if a paragraph talks about two separate points, the 2nd one. Blue is clarification. Pink is drugs.

I'm sick.

 

[coldweatherblue]

I've never bought a highlighter in my life, but I sit by people who highlight at least 90% of the lecture notes and I wonder how exactly it helps them study when almost every word of their notes is yellow. 😕

 

[EMmedic]

I'm a crazy highlighter/underliner and well. Its not that I'm highlighting things that I think are especially important (because everything is pretty much important)...its just that it keeps me focused. I highlight the first time I read, then any subsequent time I read the notes I underline in a different color pen. by the end, pretty much every word is either highlighted or underlined. Its more of a focus thing and less of a "this is important" thing.

 

[PreMedMommy]

I'm a crazy highlighter/underliner and well. Its not that I'm highlighting things that I think are especially important (because everything is pretty much important)...its just that it keeps me focused. I highlight the first time I read, then any subsequent time I read the notes I underline in a different color pen. by the end, pretty much every word is either highlighted or underlined. Its more of a focus thing and less of a "this is important" thing.

I agree, I call it "active reading." Even if I am highlighting everything, I at least take a minute to process the information to see if it warrents the bright yellow stripe. Which it usually does.

 

[Non-TradTulsa]

Hey all,

After four years of medical school, I've developed an OCD for highlighting all my textbooks, study guides, and notes. During college I highlighted very little since we were tested mostly on "big picture" things. Now, I can't help myself when I'm reading an article because every sentence seems so important. For instance, I'm studying for Step 2 and I'm highlighting every line and chart in first aid and my book is completely yellow from highlighting. Will I ever be cured of this madness!!!

P.S. Please share your highlighting stories if you have any.🙂

No, you will never be cured of this madness. But, if it makes you feel better, I once read an article that said that most good professionals are obsessive-compulsive to a degree. I'm an old non-trad, and I never highlighted much in business school - undergrad or grad school. Medical school material seems to lend itself to highlighting.

As a third year, I still use the color system I developed in first year. Red: critical for exam; orange: very important; standard yellow: important; and green: interesting but tangential.

Now, when you're studying a compressed review book where every word is, by definition, important - and you're highlighting every word anyway - that's overkill.

 

[JeffLebowski]

Yeah, and I would go a step further to say that it actually helps you to be a better clinician. Attention to detail is crucial. Being anal about your patients, knowing every little thing that's going on, their lab trends, which tests are pending, what things you're looking for, tracking their symptoms. As an M3, I'm pretty new to this, but I'm a big highliter, and I'm a little OCD, and I keep as close a track of my patients as I can, and so far it's served me well. Even if you're not that bright and can't get every DDx of whatever symptom, you look good if you know your patient in and out. The DDx comes with time, work, and experience. The in-depth knowledge of your patients comes from your personality.

 

[wAyRadikull]

yeah, i definitly use highlighting as a means of active learning/ reading. i paint the WHOLE book in yellow first, then go over with a pink highlighter in order to highlight ONLY the important information, so when i go for a final review/read.. i can actually connect dots between the pink highlighted portion... and of course you have a pencil/pen by your side to clear up concepts and jot down quick notes! .. i just really need to hold something in my hand in order to read haha

 

[JeffLebowski]

I think the best way to hilite is to have a system (color-coding, etc.), rather than just painting the whole thing, but that's just personal opinion.

 

[wAyRadikull]

I think the best way to hilite is to have a system (color-coding, etc.), rather than just painting the whole thing, but that's just personal opinion.

No, i completely agree with you. Color coding is the way to go. I've tried it several times but unsuccessfully, i guess i just dont know how to do it or atleast am really inefficient with it, so end result --> i end up painting the whole thing in yellow! lol.. maybe you could guide me as to how i should color code while reading a textbook because i have no freaking idea.. haha

In my defense, only reason i end up highlighting majority of the text is because when you read a text or note set in the beginning, everthing seems important, its just that when you constantly re-read, you can minimize the highlighting/ note taking because you know what YOU need to focus on and whats more important. But that's just me.

 

[JeffLebowski]

No, i completely agree with you. Color coding is the way to go. I've tried it several times but unsuccessfully, i guess i just dont know how to do it or atleast am really inefficient with it, so end result --> i end up painting the whole thing in yellow! lol.. maybe you could guide me as to how i should color code while reading a textbook.. haha

What I do is flip through a chapter and highlight all the diseases in one color (often the title of a section), and then flip back through the chapter and highlight medications in another color. Then I go back through and highlight key lines of text in plain yellow, bugs in pink, and molecules/structures in orange. So the things that should all be highlighted are: disease names, drugs, molecules/structures, and key text (like descriptions, definitions). From there, you can use colored pens if you want, but that's the basics of my highlighting, and I think it works extremely well. When you're rereading the text, the disease jumps out at you. The drugs jump out at you. The important descriptions/definitions jump out at you. Your eyes zip more quickly to it and you know it's a drug you're looking at (or whatever). Obvious things, filler words, ambiguous phrasing, etc., aren't highlighted, so they don't jump out at you, so you focus on the right stuff. Plus it gives you a systematic task to do as you're studying...I guess it probably appeals a little bit to the entertainment side, if you can call it that.

It can seem a little "busy" if you go overboard, so my opinion is when in doubt, don't highlight it (because you can always highlight it later). But in general, having highlighted everything in a way that registers and compartmentalizes information in your head is a high-yield way to read the text. Frankly, when I'm highlighting the first time through, I don't learn...that...much. I don't think it's possible to learn that much from the first time going through any medical text. But I learn a TON the next time through, when it's in a format that I can absorb.

 

[wAyRadikull]

Wow.. thats really good advice. I remember i've looked this up on SDN before and came up with nothing... but amazing technique. I hope you dont mind me copying/pasting this advice into word so i can keep a copy of it on my computer to refer to later!

 

[Ashers]

I highlight a lot, and at one point I thought it was dumb, especially first aid and all the review books, but I use a color-coded system. I also annotate, so when I read through things quickly, I see what I thought was really important.

 

[NoUse4aName1286]

I hate colors😡 Boo on highlighting!

 

[45408]

Here's my system: yellow = important. I highlight the facts that I didn't already know and seem likely to be tested or useful in the future.

 

[-Goose-]

I too suffer from polyhighlightoencephalopathy syndrome.

My copy of First Aid weighs approximately twice as much as an un-highlighted copy simply from all the acquired highlighter juice, pen markings, forearm/elbow grease, blood, sweat, and tears.